Can you more experienced flyers weigh in on the best frequent flyer program between OneWorld (American) or Star Alliance (United).? I live in Los Angeles, so the number of direct flights from my home city is important to me. For pleasure I mainly travel overseas, to either Europe or Asia. I appreciate all good advice. I would like to mainly use my miles for upgrades on my overseas vacations.

Thanks!

This is like asking is Pepsio better than coke or Men better than women? As many people, so many opinions..divided by two!!

Welcome to Flyer Talk smjohnson

Either program may be good (or both if you're a really frequent flyer) depending on how you earn miles and use miles. You've obviously thought out some of the issues - preference for direct flights for example, but there are others to think of too. Eg will status (and benefits that come with it) be important or is your main focus the miles. Do you have a lot of credit card spend that can build up miles quickly (and for AA also counts towards lifetime status)? What kind of paid fares do you travel on - cheap coach or more flexible (higher fare) or even first?

I agree. I guess the only immediate factor weighing more in favor of UA and Star Alliance for you would be that it has a much better connections to Asia and (I believe) it has better domestic connections from LA. If you provide more info on things like whether you usually fly economy class or business class, how many miles a year you fly and what cities you usually fly to, that might help. Even then, there will likely by plusses and minuses on both sides of the equation.

Welcome to FT!

The title of your post suggests that you want help comparing alliances, but the post itself suggests that you want help finding the best program for you within either alliance.

If that's your real question, the answer depends heavily on what sort of tickets you buy. Most U.S.-based programs are designed to motivate someone who has a choice of airlines to pick a particular one. Most overseas-based programs are designed to motivate someone who has already chosen an airline, for national affinity or other reasons, to pay for a higher class of service than s/he might otherwise. Their rewards are therefore more heavily skewed toward higher fares with little or no credit for paid discount economy. (That's an oversimplification, but it's the general approach.)

So you have to look particularly at what class of service you generally pay for. Within oneWorld, AA's program is probably best if you generally pay economy fares, especially if you fly over 100,000 miles/year. There may be better choices if you often pay to sit up front, or could if you wanted to. So check out each one's terms and conditions vis-a-vis your own travel patterns, which you didn't say enough about for us to be more specific. Also, note that some airlines have different programs for different countries of residence, so if you have the option to register at an address in another country you might want to look into any national variations that may exist.

AA does not have a true hub at LAX but does have a focus city. UA is more focused on west coast service than AA is (AA relies on Alaska as a partner a lot there), but its hub is at SFO not LAX, and so doesn't have a LOT more longhaul nonstops from LAX than AA does.

In OneWorld, you can only upgrade with miles on the airline you're a member of. That means AA in this case. Which means no problem to Europe (you can simply upgrade LAX-LHR on AA and then do the short hop in economy on BA or another partner the rest of the way, plus have all-AA one-connection flights to cities like Paris, Frankfurt, Belgium, Zurich, Rome, Dublin, Madrid, and a couple others. But in Asia, SO FAR AA only flies its own metal to Japan (Tokyo direct from LAX plus other cities, Osaka through DFW), Shanghai (also through DFW), and Delhi (through ORD). Tho keep in mind that other than Tokyo they didn't have any of those a year or two ago.

*A theoretically lets you upgrade on alliance partners, but if I understand the upgrade charts correctly, it takes almost as many miles as an outright award would! And from what I've heard so far it's much more theory than practice (tho it's a fairly new program so it may get better, who knows). But UA does fly its own metal to Sydney.

Also, upgrades work differently at AA vs UA: UA, like so many airlines, only lets you upgrade internationally from "non-discounted" (or at most "lightly discounted") economy fares, so you have to pay more before you find out whether you can upgrade (unless you can see -- www.expertflyer.com -- that upgrades are available before you book). AA lets you upgrade from just about any fare you can book through them (an occasional deep sale fare booked through them, and many fares booked through consolidators, are not eligible), but you have to pay a $250 copay (if you're not top elite) each way (plus the miles). That works out to no more (and sometimes less) than the cheapest upgradeable fare at most other airlines IF you book in advance, but if you book close to departure and thus get a much higher fare you STILL usually have to pay the $250 copay. But the "nice" thing about this is that you're only charged the $250 if the upgrade goes through, as opposed to most other airlines where you have to pay a much higher fare whether the upgrade will go through or not.

I base my decision on which final destination I will frequent the most. In my case, I am a Star Alliance member because I frequently fly to Asia and have found that Star Alliance provides me with the most options for trans-pacific and inter-Asia flights. There is UA, SQ, TG, etc. I don't have a single mile on any One World Alliance, even though AA flies to Asia and CX flies inter-Asia, simply because I felt their options were more limited flight-wise.

Another huge reason I shose Star is because of my hometown - ORD. I felt I could get to more places faster by flying UA rather than AA which would probably connect me to DFW some of the time once my first few flight options have been exhausted.

Both alliance are good... but take a look at your needs first and go from there. I am perfectly happy with my *A choice.

Well, I fly quite a lot to Germany. So for me, it is the Star Alliance. But I guess it depends where you have your home and where you go more often. I'm now based in the area of Atlanta. And Delta offers direct flights to Stuttgart. So I'll probably drop Star Alliance for whatever Delta is doing ....

In addition to all of the above, which I agree with, an additional tangible consideration is that flying out of an airline's own hub reduces the number of cheap flights and mileage run opportunities. DFW is not much of a starting point for a MR on AA, for example! However, they often have some real bargains out of DEN.

That leaves the intangibles: Others may have different opinions, but I find that OW just WORKS better than *A. There are fewer hassles with checking baggage all the way or getting boarding cards on multiple segment trips, my points earned on partner airlines post more reliably, airline staff tend to extend courtesies according to status more cheerfully, etc. YMMV, of course.

I have the same status level on both and pick the flights that suit me on a case by case basis. If you fly enough, you should try to spread your business.

The awards seem better on OW (flexible distance-based with multiple stopovers)