Sorry for this question, but what is E+ on UA? Economy plus? How are they different from regular seats? Does UA have 4 class cabins now?

Economy Plus (short hand E+) is the usually the first 6-11 rows of economy seating where they have added around 5 inches of pitch (distance btwn seats).

These seats are assigned to Full fare Y and Elites with any remaining up for grabs at the gate or after they have closed the door.

Here is the link from united.com:

http://www.united.com/page/article/0.../02/04&time=24

As beer mats, you're probably right. Useless. However, they are great for upgrading AA flights.

If you decide on UA you might consider their prepaid travel card as a way to get premier or premier exec. status immediately. The card is admin. by Chase so I think it is safe relative to the bankruptcy issues. You do have to use all the prepaid $ by the end of Feb 2006 (or you lose about half of of the $) but with the amount of travel you are talking about you will probably spend $5,000 on your seats alone. Just a thought.

Welcome to FlyerTalk. The Mileage Run forum is specifically about individual trips that are taken to earn high mileage/points. The general discussion of which program is better would be better located in MilesBuzz, so I'm going to move it there. I'm sure you'll get quite a bit more feedback on top of what you've already read.

Thanks,

Dave, a.k.a. dmfriedman
Moderator, Mileage Run