Copa versus ua
 

Hi, We are moving to PTY and I'm debating whether to fly Copa OR United from PTY. I will have to fly back to the US often (approximately about 100k miles per year).

Some background: I'm Platinum/Million Miles Gold with United.

Part of the question is if I get status with Copa, how often do upgrades come through? Is it worth moving to Copa or should I keep building my status with United?

Thanks!

You will upgraded on nearly every Copa flight - I have only missed 3 CPUs, and in 2 of those J was already full by the time I had booked my ticket. You will get an upgrade as silver most of the time, which is 25K miles or one of the top CCs from BAC or Banco General

UA only serves IAH and EWR from PTY. Also there is no PDQ needed for Copa, however that will be the same with your United account should you also move it to Panama

I have been having the same debate since the advent of ConnectMiles.

To your principal question of upgrades: yes, plentiful upgrades. If you achieve Presidential Platinum (100k) miles with CM as you suggest, you'll get upgraded almost every flight within latin america, with slightly lower probabilities to GRU, EZE, and SCL. I don't have much experience flying to the US on CM aside from Florida. And I don't know how the new Max9 planes will affect upgrades.

I tried ConnectMiles for a couple of years but now attribute all my CM flights to MileagePlus because I need them to get premier status on UA. It works out much better in my case because most of my flying to the US requires a domestic connection through IAH and a separate upgrade opportunity. If my "base" in the US were one of CM's direct flights, I might change my opinion. I don't have any complaints about ConnectMiles.

Small edit on the above, which might matter, is that Presidential is "just" 95K miles instead of 100K