Tough decision: UA 1k or AA Exec plat?
 

Hey guys,

Need some advice. I'm exec plat on AA and 1K on UA. I'm not going to be flying enough to get both next year, so I have to choose one or the other.

What are your thoughts? Has anyone else had this dilemma and chose one after trying both?

1. I fly a lot from SFO->JFK/BOS/ORD
2. Internationally, my primary flight is SFO->LHR

For vacations, I'd really like to fly to Asia/Europe and use SWUs. That's the real sweetener for me.

What I see right now:
1. United PS doesn't allow upgrades, but you can use regional upgrades on them, which is nice. I'll probably get plenty of these from flying.
2. AA doesn't fly directly to Europe from SFO except via BA, and you can't use SWUs on those flights. But I've heard they're nice anyways.
3. Lufthansa is supposed to be one of the best airlines, but so is Cathay pacific, and they are on opposite sides of the fence.
4. My AA upgrade frequency from SFO->JFK was not that high.

I'm in a potentially similar boat. But as for your situation, it would help to know what you like to use your miles for and, when you do pay, whether it is generally in economy.

welcome to FT. There are some really good threads on the UA and AA forum about this topic that you will find via the search function. However with your specific case my thoughts are that you stick with UA. This is because UA has economy plus that you will always get which will help you with your flights to JFK, which AA does not have and it seems like you spend a lot of time in economy with AA on that route. Also the nonstop on UA will be much better to LHR than connecting via AA. Plus UA has better options via Star Alliance.

Having SFO as your home airport, you will have more direct flights with UA. If you don't mind connecting flights, AA still has a lot of options connecting through ORD or DFW. If you are mainly flying Asia/Europe, UA/Star Alliance gives you more options. If you are interested in flights to Central/South America, that's where AA's strength lies.

One thing to keep in mind is that AA has soft-landing, so, even if you don't make any status next year, you will still only drop to PLAT (and then GLD after that).

A viable option would be to go for UA 1K, and just enjoy the free soft-landing to PLAT on AA. UA 1K + AA PLAT may work out better than AA EXP + UA nobody (even though I personally feel that top-tier on AA is better than on UA, between the 2 extra SWU and the lack of fare class restriction in using them).

What fares do you usually purchase for these flights? FYI, Lufthansa is great in many aspects and I'm especially looking forward to their new F product, but their Y and J are simply outdated. There are far better airlines in *A (i.e. Swiss, Thai, Singapore).