hotscot

I'm currently living in SoCal. SNA is handy, Door to gate in less than 30 mins.

I generally travel with UA for historical reasons. Since '95. It's like an old glove.
However after two years of non-travel and now no status I'm questioning the wisdom of sticking with UA.

On anticipation of flying again, domestic and Europe, I've been getting a feel via GoogleFlights.
But UA generally seems the most expensive.
Wonder if I should go with another airline and save $$$.

Advice and personal opinions welcome.

paperwastage

If you have no status (and presumably no United credit card), and not planning to fly enough to get status....

Why be loyal to united? What has United shown you for your loyalty?


Price/itinerary (best overall trip time/airport locations) beats your sense of "loyalty". If United was the only airline flying out of SNA, then maybe

DJ_Iceman

If ever there was a time to make a jump to a new airline, after a couple of years of no traveling and no elite status, that's the ideal time. But I suspect that UA/AA/DL are all essentially the same in all the ways that matter.

How close are you to million miler status with United?

hotscot

Quote:

Originally Posted by DJ_Iceman

If ever there was a time to make a jump to a new airline, after a couple of years of no traveling and no elite status, that's the ideal time. But I suspect that UA/AA/DL are all essentially the same in all the ways that matter.

How close are you to million miler status with United?

Good input but UA still seems the most expensive on every search.

I do have Chase United credit cards. I think the reward me 5000 miles a year in addition to spend.

(443,000 lifetime miles, from my Account. Anticipating more International next 15 years.)

entropy

I'm not sure why you should stick with UA... I would definitely stick with SNA, as I love the airport. There is plenty of non-UA traffic - in fact AA is 2X UA's and WN is even more.

I wish AC brought back their very shortlived YYZ-SNA on a 220... I think that's the perfect aircraft for it - though it needs 6000 ft for MTOW - I don't think it needs close to MTOW to get to YYZ.

There's an AAdmiral's club... it would be a primo market for centurion lounge...

mduell

UA schedule is on par with AA/AS/DL domestically from SNA in terms of destinations and frequencies, all of which can through-ticket internationally.

Another strategy would be to fly WN domestically (2x the schedule of the other guys) and kayak internationally.

May 1 through EOY, UA has 5200 flights to 6 destinations while AA has 4400 to 5 destinations. I'm calling that on par above, and it's certainly not 2x!

beachmouse

I’m willing to pay a little to moderately more for better operational stability and reliability and feel like UA and DL have been pretty solid leaders in that realm from 2020 onwards. AA and WN are still in the mode of throwing up a very optimistic schedule and then praying that they can talk enough remaining employees into yet more overtime to cover that schedule.

Had our first WN flights in a couple of years this March because of the lure of a cheap ticket out of Florida during spring break season and dang, they were hovering on the verger or dumpster fire with every single flight leg.

Repooc17

Be a free agent and never look back.

entropy

I guess the WikiPedia data is out of date... or UA has a lot of it on SkyWest? - Either way there are other options than UA to go from SNA - although for me, its usually UA...

mduell

Those stats are backward looking not forward looking. UA has a bit more express in the mix so AA will have maybe 2% more seats for the rest of the year, but again, I'm saying they're all on par going forward.

miuk

For domestic i tend to do Southwest and Alaska just purely for the seats availability for where i travel to
For europe, i avoid LAX like the plague and mostly do AA/Oneworld

gaobest

There is zero reason to have any airline loyalty even for sna. AS can get you anywhere with their AA partnership. Plus you would want to factor other airports as it could be less.

goog flights is most essential compared to any airline at this point.

bzcat

You have been handed a golden ticket and you don't even realize it

Be a free agent and just fly whichever airline fancies you. Since you said you will be doing some European travel, the first thing you have to be honest with yourself is how likely are you going to use SNA? It's primarily a domestic airport with some Mexico service. Are you really going to fly SNA-XXX-LHR or SNA-XXX-AMS or you going to use LAX like a normal person?

The second question I think is relevant is what is your goal? Do you want to have status or just want to have miles for reward ticket/upgrades. Sticking with a single airline is primarily for status accumulation. If you don't care about being top tier or whatever status, there is no need to stick with one airline.

The third question is where you plan to go and how often? For example, if you are planning lots of trips to Europe or Australia, obviously it doesn't make as much sense to do your SNA domestic flying with WN. But AS still makes sense.

Polytonic

So I actually did this for quite a few years (2015-2018 or so). I lived right by Irvine Spectrum and an Uber to LAX would easily be $60-80 each way (plus obligatory 2 hours of stop and go on the 405).

Between the extra 4 hours in traffic and $120-160 in rideshare expenses, it was actually cheaper for me to fly SNA-SFO-XXX on UA than it was to drive up to LAX. Granted, I probably could have drove up to LAX and parked to save on the rideshare costs, but the alternative (fly out of SNA) was just so much less hassle. Out of SNA, UA is definitely one of the weaker carriers though wrt schedule--if it wasn't for all the SFO connections internationally, I'd probably fly AS or WN; I'm honestly surprised there's even a UC there.

DELee

UA spenders and loyalists in the OC.

David