I could use some experienced input please. I'm a newbie to this forum.

I've recently moved from the Northeast to the NorthWest, and have taken a job where I will once again, be traveling 100K or more a year. I had my favorite FF Programs from back east, but now need to pick a new one to concentrate on because of the different starting point(SEA) in my travel patterns.

What I'm after is the best upgrade success percentages & bennies, and the coach seating comforts while I'm getting to the elite status levels (again). I have more than 1,000,000 miles stashed away from prior road warrior days, and accruing miles isn't a priority.

Anticipated destinations are pretty much anywhere US (major cities), with an occasional jaunt to Europe.

My poking around indicates that...

1. Alaska looks interesting, because of the AA and NW partner accruals towards status, but partner flights accrue at a diminished %. They also list the most clubroom partners.

2. American looks promising, but I have no experience with their elite levels.

3. United with their E+ looks good, but my experience with them is that until you reach platinum, plan on spending all your time in coach.

4. CO (my prior favorite back east)has limited coverage out here, so they're out.

Any advise and input would be greatly appreciated.

CO doesn't have coverage out here? Good to know since I fly them all the time from SEA. When you want to make a post that doesn't contain biased assumptions let me know and I'll help you out. Otherwise have fun flying AA and United.

I'm not sure why you think partner flights accrue at a diminished level on AS. NW , AA, and DL all accrue at 100% for EQM, plus whatever elite bonus you are entitled to. Only CO (of the domestic partners) doesn't give you EQM or bonus miles, just straight 100% miles.

You might want to check your facts again.

http://www.alaskaair.com/as/mileagep...rs_Airline.asp

Flights on Alaska partners do accrue at 100% for the partners listed. However, you need more of them to make the elite levels. For example, it's 25K for MVP, and then with partner fights it's 30k.

When you look at your account on-line it breaks it down for you by showing you your next milestones by Alaska Flight miles needed, and then by partner miles needed.

For example:

YTD Alaska/Horizon Miles
Miles Flown: XX,514 XX,486 Miles to MVP Gold

YTD Alaska/Horizon/Qualifying Partner Miles
Miles Flown: XX,473 XX,527 Miles to MVP Gold

YTD Alaska/Horizon/Qualifying Partner* Segments
Segments Flown: XX XX Segments to MVP Gold

As for COntinental, you are correct getting here from other places is fine, but the only flights out of SEA seem to be to their hubs Houston or Newark. If you want to check, then ask for a flight between SEA and SFO or ORD. All the choices come back going either through Newark or Houston. Great for running up the mileage tab, but I don't think my boss'll like that very much. Honest, I;d love to stick with them,. but that's a bit impractical

So I have done some homework, and really aren't that biased.

Suggestion: if you know what destinations you will be going to and how frequently you will go to each one and what kind of schedules you will be going to them on, do some flight shopping to get an idea of which airlines have the best service from SEA for those trips in terms of schedule convenience and such factors.

Then plug the trips into the frequent flyer programs you are considering, to see which one will give the best status and awards that you consider to be desirable.

I like AS' program, but from an award, not status, standpoint. Lots of partners to collect mileage on (AA, CO, DL, NW), and lower mileage threshholds for award flights on AS planes than other carriers (20,000 vs. 25,000 for a US domestic economy ticket, for example). Plus award flights are easy to find. But you'll have to ask others about AS' status usefulness.

"As for COntinental, you are correct getting here from other places is fine, but the only flights out of SEA seem to be to their hubs Houston or Newark. If you want to check, then ask for a flight between SEA and SFO or ORD. All the choices come back going either through Newark or Houston. Great for running up the mileage tab, but I don't think my boss'll like that very much. Honest, I;d love to stick with them,. but that's a bit impractical

So I have done some homework, and really aren't that biased."

That might be the case. Flying to many east coast cities you'll find yourself connecting. Quite frankly connecting out of IAH is going to be no better/worse than connecting out of Dallas for AA and will be better than connecting in ORD for United. Generally, employers want you to book a reasonable priced ticket. They don't usually ask how long it takes. The EWR route has good upgrade percentages and plenty of flights.

That said, you're also ignoring the fact that you can book NW, DL and AS on CO. That gives you the choice of 4 carriers going out of SEA to choose from. Good luck on getting AA or UA to match that. You'll also get opp upgraded on NW and CO and you already have CO status so you won't have to wait. Of course, all of that is probably too inconvenient.

Please also keep in mind that UA and AA really don't value their domestic travllers a lot. Both upgrade you very little. AA has an automatic program similar to NW, but only if you're platinum. UA will upgrade its global services and then mostly sell their upgrades. You'll get upgrade certs for them, but you often won't be able to use them on the flights you want. That is, you might not really care to be upgraded at 7am monday morning, but a nice nap at 6pm on Friday would be great. I usually ended up having them expire. Both of these companies also charge you FULL BAR PRICE + tips for drinks in their lounges. They also make you pay for wireless access. So you pay them ~$350 for the right to get into the place to pay them another ~$20 to have a beer and get online.

Your best choice is either stick with CO or change to NW. The latter has a better program (as an NW elite flying NW you get upgraded a LOT). You even get a chance to be upgraded when flying on a points ticket. Being a member of either lounge lets you go in any CO/NW/DL lounge and you can go in the nice AS lounges while you fly on them.

AS is even better in this respect, allowing mileage collection from flights from any of these four plus AA.

Not exactly true for AA. AA Executive Platinum elites get free upgrades on domestic flights. AA Gold and Platinum elites earn 500-mile electronic upgrade "stickers" or can purchase them. As an AA Platinum, I get upgraded (using said stickers) about 80 percent of the time from SEA-DFW or SEA-ORD.

My company (based in SEA) prefers I fly UA and because I am Premiere I have had no trouble securing seats in E+ in or out of SEA.

Safe travels!

Sounds like you're the one who's biased. United doesn't give complimentary upgrades to GS members, and it's supported upgrade system has allowed me to upgrade 90% of my flights this year. The CR-1s and 500s I earn from my international trips has given me more then enough upgrades to use on my domestic flying. With two west-coast UA hubs, the OP would be much better off going with United. Especially if he does any international flying at all - much easier to upgrade internationally on United then CO.

However, UA's west coast hubs are not the greatest. SFO has frequent delays when fog shuts down one of the runways, and LAX' terminals are not all connected behind security.

You're going to need to look carefully at where exactly you're going, and how often. You'll also need to decide if you care about things like international upgrades. You may also wish to look at the financial health of your carriers.

I fly out of SEA, and I was more or less in your position a year ago. I chose AA because a) they had a plat challenge that could get me status fast, b) they seemed to serve international routings well, and I like that EXPs could get upgraded. AA seems to quite often have fire sales on SEA-east coast routings, which I really enjoy. But my situation is slightly different in that I live for travel of all sorts to all places, and I do it on my own dime.

AS has a very nice program, at least on paper. I recently got comped to MVP Gold on the basis of my AA flight record. One killer perk of AS's program is the ability to make free changes to purchased restricted tickets. I used this feature last night without a problem for an upcoming trip. The only open question about Alaska's program is whether the competition for seats will deny you upgrades. AS's elite thresholds are relatively low, and you may find yourself competing with more folks for free open seats. On AA, if you're EXP or even just PLT, there often aren't too many pople who can "beat" you to the upgrade. My upgrade record as a PLT was exceptionally good; as EXP I expect it will be even better (just crossed over.)

Nutshell: if you think you'll be flying mostly domestic and AS can take you those places, and your due diligence suggests good upgrade potential, give AS a go.

If you care a lot about international upgrades and/or certain cheap east coast routes, AA may be a better bet.

For myself, I've made both AA EXP and AS MVP Gold, and I will be trying to matain status in both programs. We'll see.

-KF

I live in Seattle and this year I will make 1P on UA and MVPG on AS again. I go to NY, SFO, LAS, LAX& BUR, and PHL mostly and the AS schedule is very nice. All nonstops and instant upgrade on most west coast flights. Getting upgraded on a long=haul flight on AS is harder.

UA is nice to handle the international flights and get the *A credit. Their first is nicer and once you make 1P the upgrades are nice. BUT, you always have to connect through somewhere, which doubles your chance of a delay and can mean on avg it could take you twice as long to reach the east coast as a comparable AS flight.

I see a lot of people go the AA route. That makes sense to me, but I haven't done the research myself.

I have been debating whether I should try to qualify on both again next year or try and get 1K on united. still tbd.

"Sounds like you're the one who's biased. United doesn't give complimentary upgrades to GS members, and it's supported upgrade system has allowed me to upgrade 90% of my flights this year. The CR-1s and 500s I earn from my international trips has given me more then enough upgrades to use on my domestic flying. With two west-coast UA hubs, the OP would be much better off going with United. Especially if he does any international flying at all - much easier to upgrade internationally on United then CO."

Of course I'm biased. I flew on that airline for years. I was Premier Executive on UA for 3 years. The latter part of one was in Seattle. The upgrades that you're talking about are coming from a mass amount of overseas travel. The OP is looking at doing west to east coast domestic. Try flying UA just inside of the country and you'll see that the upgrades are garbage. I've flown many a night on UA sitting in coach looking up at the open seats in business class. On CO/NW, you know that when you're flying domestically (as the OP will be doing), the airline is doing what it can to take care of you. When I fly in the back now, I know that the airline I'm flying is doing what it can. I might still be in back, but I know that is because people with more status or a higher fare are sitting up front and there aren't empty seats up there. That's a far cry from UA. The OP will get nothing like 90% upgrades domestically. I was PE and most of mine would end up expiring. When you elect to use the certificates, there is no guarantee of them being able to be used.

There is also the issue of partners. I wonder how the OP will like being limited to UA or US Air. That limits options flying out of SEA vs the CO/NW/DL/AS partnership. With UA, you also have the distinct joy of flying through hubs like SFO and ORD. Both, especially the latter, are known for delays. The biggest improvement in my travel experience has been avoiding ORD. I've been stuck at that airport overnight on at least 1/2 dozen times.

The UA lounges are also terrible. Even the international ones only give you a few drinks. CO/NW/DL/AS all have free drinks and almost all have free wireless. The AS lounge in SEA in particular is quite nice. Both NW and CO also have lounges there. When I had an RCC membership, I stopped even going in to the UA lounge. I didn't see the point.

UA might be a great option for someone who does a ton of international travel, but for anyone flying domestic they aren't.

The best solution out of SEA is either CO/NW for the upgrades on both and the ability to get miles from AS/DL flights or AS for the ability to get upgraded on its flights and get miles from CO/NW/DL/AA flights.

in spite of his mean-spirited attitude, the general is probably correct about UA being a poor choice from SEA. In addition to SFO and ORD being hairy, the United gates at SEA are all in the furthest concourses.

I've recently moved from AS to AA and couldn't be happier (unless of course they reopened the Admirals Club in Concourse A). For choices of flights and number of partners, AS is likely your best bet. The downside is that EVERYONE and their dogs are elite in Seattle so there's always someone with better status. With relatively poor status, I seem to do pretty well pretty consistently with AA. But again, as others have mentioned, it really comes down to where you're trying to go.

With regards to IAH vs DFW, I'd take DFW in a hearbeat anytime. Their Skytrain (or whatever they call it) makes traveling from terminal to terminal a snap - all behind security.

I watched my father-in-law get laid off as an Alaska ramp worker last year and have decided to take my business elsewhere when I can. But because AA and AS codeshare the West coast from SEA, I still end up flying them, albeit less frequently.