I am a current CO Gold flyer, being a transplant to SFO from AUS. I enjoyed CO under Bethune's watch, but under Kellner, Elite benefits have precipitously declined IMO. Flying out of SJC or OAK are my only options to be upgraded or to not endure six hours of straddling the lap of the 6'6" 350lb man shoe-horned into the middle seat (don't even get me started on why the middle seats are filled in the front where elites are but EMPTY in the rear...).

I'm open to switching to another airline that will match my Gold status. My flying habits hover between 30k and 55k a year with about 70% leisure trips to visit family, and with most flights cross country to NY. JFK is my preferred airport becuase of the rail service. MX is also a travel destination, as well as TX. And note taht we are both members of the President's Club.

I was considering AS, but I could not get elite status by flying CO flights. I was also considering UA, on which my partner is Gold, but would that be putting all of our eggs in a basket?

What are your recommendations? I value your suggestions.

Danny

I really like United Airlines.

• One of its major hubs is San Francisco.
• It is very easy to earn miles by means other than flying. For example, take a look at the free 20,000 mile credit card offer I list on the Credit Card > Annual Fee cards page of my website below.
• If you ever decide to fly internationally, the Star Alliance is the best in the business.

You could call them to ask if they might match your status, telling them you want to fire Continental and are shopping for another loyalty program. (800) 421-4655.

I would recommend United airlines.

I chose UA because when downloading the PDF master schedules from all the airlines, they had lots of flights from SFO to places I wanted to go.

After flying 25K miles and becoming "Premier" (the lowly "2P" level of status), I found the benefits very good. You get to fly economy plus which on some routes gives you a lot more leg room in coach.

While upgrades are reportedly hard to get for 2P members, I was once offered an upgrade to C class when flying to JFK for $150. It was only my third ever Business class trip, but I found it considerably better than either of the other two. (Essentially they fly international-like planes between SFO/LAX and JFK.)

United is the hub carrier here. They will probably match your gold status to premier or premier executive. Given the number of 1K and GS members here you probably won't get upgraded often - but at least they have economy plus.

And you can continue to use the great Continental club at SFO at it sits outside of security.

Welcome to FT!

I'd recommend UA too. I also switched to UA this year and they matched
my Platinum to 1P.

i also like *A over Sky team. its a much better alliance.

With your interest in elite status and international flights, you're probably not interested in WN or B6. WN's FF program is not very good for long haul fliers (it racks up award tickets quickly for the short haulers -- e.g. weekly trip to RNO or LAX/BUR/SNA -- but a long haul flight gets the same one point each way that a short flight gets). B6 has a lot of OAK-JFK flights, though. Both WN and B6 have their main presence in the bay area in OAK.

UA has a huge hub at SFO, so it has a lot of flight selection from SFO. Try to make elite on UA if you want to use them, though -- the non-elite UA @ SFO experience is not particularly great (long check in lines, long lines at security, less seat pitch than WN or B6 in non-premium economy, lots of weather delays at SFO (granted, being elite won't help the weather, but may help in rebooking if you plans are messed up due to the weather delays)). I found that redeeming UA miles for an award ticket was much harder than redeeming AS miles for an award ticket (same end points, same days of the week, same time of year, different years).

AS is mostly a west coast airline. Their main advantage is that they have mileage partnerships with AA, CO, NW, and DL, making mileage collection easy if you fly a lot of different airlines. An award economy ticket in the contiguous US states on AS is only 20,000 miles, instead of 25,000 miles that most airlines' award economy tickets (or AS award tickets on partner airlines) in the contiguous US states cost. If you choose UA as your primary FF carrier, you may want to use AS as a secondary FF program to collect mileage when the best flights for your trip are on a non Star Alliance carrier.

Sorry for the slightly off-topic question, but is there a way to bypass the long lines at SFO security if you are elite? I thought the shorter (right-hand) side was just for C- and F-cabin fares. I'm only 2P though, so I might not have noticed if they also allow 1P.

I'm based in San Francsico and find myself a very happy Continental elite member here. The Presidents Club folks are generally pretty good at helping me find decent seats without that 6'4 350 pound person in the middle seat. If I were you, I'd stick with either OnePass or maybe the AS Mileage Plan as my secondary program. You might want to note that as of recently, and this has not made it to the CO website yet, PC members can visit the SFO AS BR at any time.
Personally, I prefer SFO/OAK-EWR...but if you prefer OAK-JFK B6 just does a better job than UA. In my years flying UA out of SF the preponderance of flights have been late and the service is, I feel, the second worst in the business. (The worst being Ryanair.) Although B6 is an all-coach prouct with a lame ffp, who needs upgrades when you are in a nice and large leather seat with DirecTV and excellent cabin service?

Also consider AA. They have a lot of SFO-JFK flights and upgrades might be easier than UA.

I personally think that UA ps (SFO-JFK) service is quite good and we were able to score upgrades on weekend travel even though no one travelling had elite status. All SFO-JFK flights on ps service have Economy Plus; I think AA also has MRTC on this route.

And B6 is no match for E+ even with the TV.

The great thing about a thread like this is the educational and opinionated insight you get from two spectrums. I am a NW Gold, but am trying to get CO gold right now. I wish I could fly UA more, but my routes aren't westbound from the heartland and flying to ORD isn't my favorite cup of tea (DEN & ORD are the only routes served out of TUL). But I do agree that their int'l alliance is stronger than Sky Team's.

Thanks for the tips! I actually will probably stay with CO, since my partner is now with UA. I like the idea of covering both bases!

Danny

I vote for United. Pursue a status match from them.

I really hate to disagree with pgary, but I really hate United because:

(1) Whenever I call a CSR (as a 2P) they are based in India and pretty much useless (you can search the UA forum for incident reports). So far no outsourcing at AA. ^

(2) UA charges $50 per 500 miles to upgrade, much higher than AA ($30 per 500mi for elites). On a transcon roundtrip, you will save $200 with AA.

(3) UA has so many elite members who use SFO that your chances of being upgraded are low, particularly if you are 2P or even 1P. However on AA I rarely have trouble upgrading from SFO even as a lowly Gold.

You can see where I'm going with this. I think AA service for elites is far superior than UA's service from SFO. AA also has great daily service to JFK with several nonstops (as opposed to connecting at DFW or ORD).

So why do I still fly UA? Well, as pgary noted, SFO is a UA hub, so generally you will find the best schedule options on UA (and better options in the event of irregular ops). But more importanly, UA offers E+ seating (free to elites) and the extra 5" of legroom is a huge + when you are not flying in F. For SFO-JFK, UA also offers PS service, which means you will never get stuck in an E- seat.

In the end, UA is the easy choice from a convenience perspective, but you should consider AA if it makes sense for your travel patterns. AA also offers expedited elite status after flying as little as 5000 miles (check the AA forum for details on the "challenge).

The right-side security in terminal 3 is (AFAIK) for all elites, as well as C/F fares, even though the signs are somewhat misleading. My parents have gone through there as 2Ps and 1Ps without incident. This past June I went through as a less-than-lowly 3P and also had no problems. Same goes for the elite/C/F check-in lines on the right.

I've always gone by the rule of... choose the FF program you will belong to based on your domciled city's airline hub. By that rationale, if I were in SFO, I would choose UA. UA = mmore flights = mmore options = more miles. Well, in a nutshell anyway.