Best FF Program for WAS
 

My apologies if this is the wrong forum for this.

I'm a WAS flyer, probably do 75K a year and have been flying with US out of habit for 10 years. Since the program has been devalued lately, I'm looking at other carriers, but I am not familiar with anyone other than UA. My goal is simple - I want to fly whatever airline gives me the best chance at getting a comfortable seat, and the smallest chance at a regular economy seat.

US does unlimited upgrades, but they have few first class seats on mainline jets, they route you through PHL, and fly many regional jet flights with no first class. UA has Economy plus which is fine, but I seem to be booted out of there at random with some regularity. The 500 mile upgrade certs seems to me to grant you no more than 20% of your flying miles in first class.

What about the others? Continental, Northwest, American, Delta? Can someone just give me a two sentence description of the program, e.g. how you access first class (coupons or unlimited upgrades), whetehr they fly a lot of regional jet routes out of WAS, and whether people have decent success getting upgraded. yur comments are greatly appreciated.

Welcome to FT!!

If you have no problem flying out of IAD I would strongley recomend UA MP. It is about a 50 50 shot they will Match your US status because they are both in the *Alliance. It never hurts to ask though.
But your US Gold will get you E+ all the time if it is avalible. Doing the math if you plan to fly 75,000 a year and you made the Switch to UA on monday you could reach 40,000 miles by year end and if you put in some F fares and Y fares you will get 50,000 EQM which will get you 1P status (Mid Tier).

I hope this helps.

Ben

Thanks for the info. 40k is about right, but that's 16 500 mile credits which is only enough to get me to SEA and back once in 1st. Better than nothing of course. And E+ is nice. I looked around the UA website, and it seems as if the 1k deal is pretty nice with the system-wide upgrades, but I'm unlikely to get to 100k.

i would be interested in thoughts on other airlines of which I know virtually nothing.

Where do you fly to?

I'm sure that you could find the two-sentence decription that you're looking for on this board using the "search" function.

Well, out of those three, American uses the coupon/sticker system (except it lacks E+ if you don't upgrade), while Continental, Northwest and Delta all offer complimentary upgrades to ALL elites anytime there is space (theoretically).

Of the three, Continental probably flies the most RJ's out of this area (they only fly RJ's from IAD; all their BWI-EWR and BWI-CLE service is on RJ's, all of their DCA-CLE is on RJ's, and some of their DCA-EWR is on RJ's. They even have one DCA-IAH on an RJ!)

Delta runs a few RJ's out of BWI and DCA, and a bit more out of IAD, but a lot of these are point-to-point; the vast majority of their hub flights out of this area are on mainline jets.

Northwest also flies only a few RJ's. Then again, they have very few flights out of the DC area (basically to their hubs plus a couple of point-to-point to IND/GRR/etc) so although their service is all mainline, it's not as extensive.

Of these three, I have never been an elite on Delta so I can't say how the upgrading goes there. I am a NW elite which allows me access to upgrades on NW and CO. So far I am at about 50% success for flights on NW (higher success rate out of BWI than DCA, actually) and have had no luck at all on CO (0 for 2).

I have been Gold or higher living in the D.C. area on Delta, US, United, and Northwest. I currently fly almost exclusively out of (actually, into, now that I have moved from D.C. to N.M. :cool: ) IAD on UA now, and generally reserve my upgrades for long-haul flights.

You might want to consider NW. As Gold and even Silver you have unlimited upgrades, and actually decent shots at getting them, and a first-class product on the mainline jets that's probably slightly better than United's. They have decent service out of DCA (although it's from the horrible ghetto-terminal A) -- their schedules are probably better than UA's from DCA, for example. Of course, you lose most non-stops to the west (from IAD on UA) or to the south (from DCA on US or DL), so NW would only be viable if you don't mind flying mostly through DTW and MSP, which are, in my opinion, two of the best airports in the U.S. through which to connect. And WorldPerks is a decent program, with pretty good SkyTeam coverage out of IAD if you want to go to Europe.

I can't speak to Continental at all, but I had very poor experiences upgrading as Silver and Gold on Delta.

I can't believe that I am recommending Northwest Airlines, which generally has poor service all-around, but for a semi-frequent flier living in D.C. it's an OK choice all things considered.

At least Southwest will be coming to Dulles this fall, with two gates!

Thanks for all the great information! I will look into Northwest and United as they seem to be the best for a DC traveller. I'll have to look at the NW forum for info on the CoachChoice program, although I can guess what people are saying. AS for SW, well, they lack the two things I am most interested in: a shot at first, and a guaranteed aisle/exit row if not.

If you were to become an elite on NW, the CoachChoice program would not affect you. You still have a bunch of decent seats at the front of the cabin to pick from without paying extra. Now, this doesn't constitute a 100% "guaranteed" aisle and/or exit row, particularly on a full flight you book at the last minute, but then again, I doubt any other airline could promise you that either - if the seats are full, they're full.

One other thing to consider is I believe I read an informal analysis someone did which suggests that the First/Economy ratio on the average NW mainline jet is more favorable than on most other airlines' average mainline jets. That may be why it's easier to get upgraded as a low level elite on NW vs the lack of success that others have reported on DL and CO.

I would say NW is probably the closest to what you are looking for.