Howdy! I'll be moving to Kansas City around September. I am currently Gold Elite with Northwest. I will continue to fly NWA however I would like an extra airline to split my time between. I was thinking probably American or maybe United. I am not a business traveler and all my miles are on super cheap discount fares (not priceline or hotwire cheap, just regular cheap). I was thinking American may be good because of the Platinum challenge they offer. However, United also seems like a tangible alternative. Also, down the road I will be staying the lowest tier on both airlines, (Gold American, Premier United). The cities I will be flying to the most will be LAS, PHX, LGA, PBI, LAX, YVR. Hope this helps.

The most important benefits for me are in order:

1) Earn Miles on all purchsed fares (includind deeply discounted)
2) Ability to upgrade all purchased fares w/ miles. (includind deeply discounted)
3) Premium F product
4) Affordable tickets (maybe one of these airlines offers traditionally cheaper discounted seats than the other?)

Well, a few observations:

1. Most all UA fares outta the US earn miles. Can't think of any that dont, cept travel agent/non-rev, off-hand.
2. Not all UA cheap fares are upgradable internationally. Those fares that are may be considerably higher than the cheapos. If you get a chance, compare a VIPOW w an SWU. AA may be better here.
3. UA F is quickly disappearing on many US routes (ie. RJ's and TED). But one 'advantage' to you is that MCI has 737's and 757's into ORD or DEN.
4. UA tickets are almost always the most expensive in the market. You can count on that! In fact, United almost has a certain arrogance about it, IMHO! But, that's not to say that UA wont match or have a lower fare than another carrier at any particular moment in time.

5. Historically, UA has lots and lots of mileage earning promos and discount coupons, which can overcome/counter balance a high fare. This is another big advantage to UA. I don't know of any other airline which offers sooo many ways to easily discount a ticket.

6. UA does Asia so much better than AA. OTOH, AA does Central and South America better than UA. But then both carriers all have partners. And you would need to compare the mileage earning oppty's on them. Some low SQ fares don't earn miles at all. So be sure to compare what the partner has to offer in terms of miles as well.

7. If at some point you want to do mileage runs for status, AA's routings are much, much more restrictive than UA's. Thus, UA pays off better, faster.

One of my pet peeves about AA, is that they charge a service fee for award bookings less than 21 days in advance. UA doesn't.

So mebbe you should chose the one whose personality, route and award structure, and elite benefits, matches you best.

All I can say is that Singapore, TG, LH, and ANA FC awards work for me!

Cheers!

.......dup

Welcome to the neighborhood! We moved here from NJ last year and although it's harder to get anywhere from here, the housing prices are a joy. We have twice the house for half the price of the one I sold in Bergen County, NJ.

I chose AA. Was CO Silver but not interested in keeping that status up for reasons that have been beaten to death on other threads. Made Platinum on AA through a Challenge when I went to India and have been happy with them so far. Didn't consider United because there seemed to be more happy AA customers than UA customers on these Boards. Flew DL via ATL to MYR at Christmas and they lost my luggage (but got it to me that day). Never mind.

You may find yourself flying Southwest more than you want- I had to go to BWI last March and it was the only nonstop. Now I have a trip to PHX in July and AmericaWest and Southwest are the only nonstops. So, with Southwest I try to relax and appreciate it for what it is-an unabashedly low-cost carrier that generally gets you from A to B on time and seems to enjoy it more than the majors.

The biggest problem that you'll have with UA is having to go pretty exclusively to ORD or DEN. LAS and PHX are getting to be Ted-only destinations. Looks like you can also fly a CRJ to IAD or DCA, or US to CLT.

On the plus side, looks like they are adding 757 flights to ORD and DEN.

I fly ORD-MCI several times a year and the fares are pretty good (under $150), but I generally have a Saturday night stay.

Another consideration is that with ORD's weather this year (seems like there have been continuous delays), MCI is always dealing with ground stops to ORD -- since you're only an hour away, they're going to hold you on the ground whenever it gets ugly at ORD (like today).

If you want to commit to a major airline out of MCI, I would probably recommend AA. I have Lifetime Gold on them, but I find myself flying YX and WN more and more often because they have cheap fares and plenty of nonstops.

My reasons:

- Most importantly: AA provides passable customer service to its Gold members. Not great, but not bad. United provided me consistently offensively bad customer service for my two years as a Prem Ex. I don't even know what it's like as a Premier.

- AA runs entirely MRTC aircraft to MCI. Mostly MD-80's, with the occasional Next Gen 737. (Obviously, there is no guarantee that MRTC will be around forever. ) United mixes in the RJ's from time to time. No guarantees that AA won't, but I have never seen one yet.

- AA earns full miles and allows upgrades off of any fare. Pretty simple U/G system, actually. As a Gold, I get enough upgrades to keep me happy. When I really want them, I have usually gotten the upgrade. (Admittedly, upgrading isn't a terribly high priority for me as long as I am on MRTC.)

- Having two hubs to choose from - ORD and DFW - is convenient for MCI travelers. Since we are right in the middle, we can usually find a reasonably sane connection to any destination in the US.

Comparing your routes specifically:
- LAS: Slight advantage to UA because of the better connect through DEN. WN provides nonstop.
- PHX: Slight advantage to UA because they have a bazillion flights to PHX via DEN, cumbersome connection on AA through DFW. WN provides nonstop
- LGA: Significant advantage to AA. Nonstop flight vs. ORD connection on UA. I think YX also goes nonstop, and I'm not sure if WN gets you into the NYC general area nonstop or not.
- South Florida: Slight advantage to AA thanks to DFW being a smoother connect than ORD. WN gets you into south FL nonstop (I think).
- LAX: Slight advantage AA since that's an AA mini-hub. Lots of DFW flights. DEN isn't a bad connection. WN and YX both go nonstop - WN into LAX and YX into SNA.
- YVR: Push. I am in the process of trying to find cheap tix MCI-YVR and nobody does this route well. Cumbersome connection everywhere, unless you want to do WN to SEA and drive.

In the past year or two, I've come to place such a high premium on the convenience of a nonstop that I've stopped avidly playing the FF game for my actual flights. (I'm still a freak when it comes to partner miles!) I'm flying to LAX, SEA, and DCA in the coming months, and I'm using WN and YX to do it - even though I might not be maxxing out my mileage potential. Connecting sucks.

Welcome to Kansas City, by the way.

Looks like the decision is leaning towards AA. Also, not to offend anyone, but the "tone" in the AA forum seems much more positive than United. I guess we'll see.......

I'm a UA fan myself, but I'm afraid I may have to concede to AA on MCI. On a scheduling basis alone, American just offers more flexibility than United does.

For example, on a recent trip I booked to MCI, American's last two departures from ORD were at 8:32pm and 10:18pm. United's last departure was only 8:05pm.

Same thing going back to ORD; American's last departure is at 7:09pm, United's last departure is only 5:50pm. To me this is more of a problem, since it means cutting meetings short to ensure I get to the airport on time, or else I have to stay an extra night.

I haven't looked into DEN-MCI or DFW-MCI to see how they compare.

Just this week when making a choice for my new 2nd program I went with AA, in doing my research I noticed the same and it did play a roll in my pick of AA.

Of the Big Six airline boards here, I also sense the same thing. There are gripes and groans about all of the programs - and all programs have their big fans - but I think AA has done two things to separate itself from some of the others:

(1) They deliver passable customer service to low elites (on phone, at airport, during irregular ops, etc.). IMHO, as an AA Gold, I'd give 'em a C in this category. I have been low-elite on all of the rest except CO, and I would grade the other four at D or F. United would get an F- if that is possible.

(2) Of course AA likes full-fare customers, but they don't hate discount-Y travelers the way some of the other airlines do. You still get respectful treatment, you still have a chance at an upgrade, you still earn full miles, etc. AA does go out of their way to recognize full-Y folks (free upgrades, etc.), but they don't do it in a nasty way towards the others.

I live in the DC area, but I just came through MCI last weekend and you might be interested in something that happened to me. It's why I'd say you should consider American and possibly a membership in the Admirals' Club as well.

It was Sunday, May 30, and weather was messing up travel throughout the midwest. I was booked on the last MCI to ORD flight, connecting to the last ORD to DCA flight. That is, until a member of the MCI Admirals' Club staff phoned me to warn that the weather was causing major flight delays and there would probably be cancellations, and that I should get to the airport early and take an earlier flight if at all possible. She'd taken the trouble to check the passenger lists and look for Club members who might be needing help, then look for their contact information (and, remember, I'm not a local) and get in touch with them.

When I got to the airport, she was waiting for me with a new routing through DFW -- which also had weather delays Sunday, but nothing like what was happening at O'Hare.

I've already sent a note to AA Customer Service praising her, and I'd be ecstatic to have someone like that working at any of the airports in the Washington area.

Now thats what I call customer service!! Off the topic a bit, does the AA Admirals Club serve comp alcohol?

Three other thoughts:

MCI used to be a hub for US, so consider those options when evaluating UA, its *A and codeshare partner. Going from MCI to FL, CLT would seem to be an obvious stop, for example.

(The next two may not meet your 2 & 3 preferences, but . . .)

Midwest has a fair number of direct destinations from MCI (including LGA and DCA). I believe they partner with AA, so it seems like you should be able to receive AA miles for the Midwest flights. I haven't heard much about them lately; I don't know what kind of financial shape they are in or the extent that they match the lowest fares of others in the market. No F but their traditional Y product used to be better than most and competed with other's F product (I think that the traditional Y is now their Signature Series).

If you travel west a lot and would have to connect anyway, also look at Frontier, who is also a partner of Midwest (but not of AA or UA). They do fly direct to DEN and LAX from MCI. No F that I am aware of.

Well, I've been in MCI for six months and in my experience if price is a main concern for you, which it sounds like it is, then you might quickly find that Delta seems to be the best choice in my experience. Trip after trip, Delta consistently is the lowest price, and it's not just that they're matching what the others are offering ... they are the lowest price by some amount many times I've found.

AA is probably second, but in those cases they seem to have prices that match Delta's sometimes, but other times they're noticably more expensive.

I don't think I've priced one trip yet where Delta wasn't the lowest priced option (plus/minus $10, rouding for airport taxes basically) except maybe some MCI-CHI trips I flew on Southwest.

- US no longer maintains any "mini-hub" type presence at MCI. The old MCI-West Coast flights are gone. You just get the usual PHL, CLT, PIT as far as I know. Still: you can almost think of these as an extension of UA I suppose. I sometimes overlook US when thinking about UA. There might be some US Air Express - I forget if that piece got bought/sold recently or not.

- YX does match fares with the majors where applicable. The have, for the most part, gone no-frills and low-fare where they have to compete with Southwest or others. I just flew them for $118 all incl. ($45.50 base fare each way) to DCA. The cookies and champagne are gone. They provide a few box snacks on each flight for sale - sit in the last 3-4 rows if you want to buy one. I was in the middle of the plane and they were all gone by the time they got to me. All in all I was happy with YX because of the fare and route, but I was surprised at how rock-bottom they've taken their service. The "Best Care In The Air" is now somewhere below the majors and a notch above Southwest. Small planes and 2x2 seating are nice in that there is never an overwhelming line to check a bag or speak to an agent.