I am currently with Delta.

I will be travelling domestically ALOT over the next few years and the following airlines fly to most or all of my destinations:

AA, UA, DL, and to a lesser degree NW

I would GREATLY appreciate if you all could weigh in on which airline you would recommend, ALL things considered.

Thanks, I look forward to reading your comments.

Here we go. I am sure you will get the various sycophants for different airlines responding.

But I think you need to analyze the routes you will be traveling, and select the airline that serves you in that regard as your first criteria. If that is a toss up, then you will have to weigh all the subtle differences between the programs. The basics are the same.

For me, I selected United because:

1)Years ago, when I decided to focus on one airline, United serviced more of the routes I needed.

2)The extra room Economy plus seats is very useful, especially if seats next to you are empty. Also, the aircraft are newer than many others.

3)United has the UGS status above 1K. I am not sure if all the other airlines have a similar program.

4)They have consistently treated me well for over a decade in most regards,
earning my loyalty

If you fly almost all domestically, you should go with NW, IMHO. Free unlimited upgrades. As a Gold, I'm at 100% on upgrades for the year.

It really depends on the routes you fly, the fares you pay (full, high, discount), and want you want out of the program (to some, upgrades are the most important).

You should also think about any international travel you may do at some point, if you do have some on the horizon its definitewly worth it to consider either UA or AA as they are part of the worlds biggest alliances, i.e. Star Alliance and One World.

In general, there really isnt such a thing as one programm being better than others in ALL aspects. There are so many variables to consider...

The various airlines FF programs are constantly changing right now, but you should examine what you want the most out of the FF program. Some considerations:

1)Schedule. If one airline consistantly has the best times/routes from your city, and you care about the shortest routing for your flights (ie save time, connections, headaches), maybe that should be the airline of your choice, and then live with whatever pros/cons that airlines FF program has. The partners of the "best" airline in this case will also help out as you can earn miles on partner airlines.

2)Flexibility of changing awards. AA & NW now charge $100 for ANY change to a FF award ticket (unless you are Plat I think), including dates/times to the same destination. United doesn't charge for those changes as long as the routing is exactly the same (including connection city). Delta doesn't charge for those changes as long as the departure/destination are the same. However, Delta doesn't allow standbys anymore, though they will put you on any available seat the day of your travel for $25 if the FF seat is not available. I believe (not sure) other airlines allow standby flights.

3) Flexibility of getting awards. A million FF miles are no good if you can't get seats. Other than using ~2x the award miles and going "rulebuster/aanytime/etc", are seats fairly easy to get using the min award mileage domestically and/or internationally (as your choice of travel)? The partners a plan has greatly enhances the seat availability. NW/CO and now Delta have a domestic alliance. Alaska/AA (and others?) have a domestic alliance. United/Delta just broke their domestic alliance. Check each airline for international alliances (NW/KLM, AA/Quantas, etc). Partners can also earn miles on each other's FF programs, so you can choose to earn NW miles if you fly a CO flight, for example.

4)Upgrades/Top Tier. If you truly fly very often, then upgrades and additional top tier comfort amenities may be important to you. Check how easy it is to achieve top tier status(Silver/Gold/Plat) and what that gets you. I personally have found it impossible to use my AA earned upgrades (they used to have 500mile upgrade coupons) when I was earned Gold AA. Not only were the upgrades not available on all the legs of my flight (which made the flight not-upgradable), but also I had to round up 500miles for each segment (ie if the flight was 1001 miles, I had to use 3x500mile upgrade coupons). I think AA changed this policy now, but I'm not sure (I switched out of AA FF program). On the other hand, NW is extremely generous on upgrades. If you are a tier member, they automatically upgrade you if there is space available; the higher the tier, the earlier the upgrade confirmation. NW tier seemed to be very helpful in other situations as well, personal experience w/ my dad. He was Silver or Gold NW and had some medical incidences w/ my mom when they were vacationing. NW got them immediate award seats on otherwise "sold-out" flights with waived penalties. That was several years ago, I don't know if their waived penalities policy is the same now. Gold AA seemed a dime-a-dozen, I don't know if everyone earned them or somehow got comped the status. Very little added value except bonus miles and "early boarding" along w/ like 50 other "early boarders".

AA used to be my FF program of choice: best scheduling, fairly easy FF award flights, no penalty for changes, bad upgrades though --- but their program changed. The things that caused me to leave AA were $100 penalty for ANY change to a FF ticket, award seats seemed harder to get, and convenient flight schedules scaled back (and CSR/flt staff seemed to get nastier -- but maybe that was just my own bad experience). I am somewhat in FF limbo right now, I have amassed miles in Delta and NW. But I am not flying much now (except for award travel), so I am not watching it as closely. I know a lot of people are leaving Delta because of their poor top tier earning/benefits (I think), but I personally have recently found their 25k domestic award availability VERY generous -- during Thanksgiving and Christmas.

ET,

You may not like the AA program, but please don't make up stuff. You are wrong on just about everything you said above about the AA program. There is no need to debate each statement because they all way off.

As far as what's best for the OP? I agree with few others here. I would look at who gives you the best schedule that meets your needs, and then learn and squeeze out the most out of that program, as each have their good and bad points, but none are really that much above the other.

I live in Sarasota, and I still fly AA exclusively, although I have to use TPA, which means an hour drive everytime I fly. SRQ(about 15-20 minutes away, and 5 minutes to get on and off the plane) is serviced by DL and CO which INHO don't come close to what I need as far as the FF program is concerned, and USAir, a possibility, but their domestic and international schedule is not even close to AA. I started with AA when they did have commuter flights to MIA. With time I've discovered ways to get the most out of my miles and to this day I'm still learning. One of the reasons I'm here , but the real reason I started with AA back then was the fact that they gave me the schedule and destinations I needed, not because somebody told me that their FF program is the best.

Although I can't add much to this thread (because when it comes down to it, the fares and schedules for your favorite flights will make your choice for you), I thought I'd add a different opinion about AA Gold to counter ET's bad experiences.

I've been both low- and mid-tier on most US airlines, including all of the ones listed in this thread. I've now dropped out of all statuses except AA Gold because I no longer fly for business.

IMHO, AA Gold is the best low-level status you can have, assuming you have no chance of making a mid-tier. If you can make a mid-tier, NW/CO and their liberal upgrades come into play. But as a low-level, I've found that AA provides good customer service both at airports and on the phone, as well as a "fair" shot at a limited number of upgrades. I don't obsess about upgrades much as long as AA has MRTC. I'd rather ride 2 out of 10 segments in F on AA than 5 out of 10 on NW without MRTC.

I've also gotten the awards I've wanted (including Europe and Hawaii) without much difficulty, provided I was flexible with routing and dates within a day or so. Both United and AA have been good to me as far as international and Hawaii awards have gone: again, I provide a little flexibility and let the agents at AwardPlanner do the legwork.

The only downside with AA (I'll agree with ET on this bit) is that they are playing 100% hardball as far as the rules go, and those rules are getting tigher every day. The "bogus" fees around award tickets are exactly that (bogus). I have dealt with some nasty agents on the phone with every airline - but I get the sense that some of them are actually nice people caught between hardball rules and lots of irate customers. (Put me on the phone trying to enforce those garbage fees with my job on the line, and I'd probably turn into a Grade A A-hole pretty fast.)

Again, the fares/routes/schedule will determine your airline of choice, and keep in mind that there are people here who love and hate every airline.

Really? Why?

As an elite member of an airline that allows unlimited FC upgrades and delivers over 90% of the time, I just do not understand the glorification of elite programs, like AAdvantage, that dole out their 20% upgrades like they were Aquafina bottles in the Sahara. As one about to achieve AA lifetime Gold -- and used to finding cheap tickets -- I expect my benefits to be next to none.

And that's only while the program still exists. :-)

AA Advantage used to be my FF program of choice, I used to laud and praise everything about it and earned and used over 200K miles over a period of a few years domestically and internationally. However, it changed. Everything I have said about it is based on my personal experience and is true for me and my particular airport/routes. If any information is incorrect, then I was incorrectly told it by AA CSR themselves --- I did not make anything up. If something I said is wrong, then please correct me as I'd be interested in knowing what is really right as well. Like I said, I used them in the past and don't claim to know how they are right now.

One interesting tidbit that I used before was this: I never was able to use any of my earned upgrade coupons to upgrade. HOWEVER, I found out that (at that time, I think 2000 or 2001?) they would convert each 500mile upgrade cert to 2,500 AAdvantage miles. So when I earned 4coupons/10K flown over the 25K mark, I could turn them into 10K AA miles. I was very grateful someone told me about this, 'cause my upgrade coupons were expiring from non-use. I'd convert them to AA miles before they expired. Later however, I was told that each upgrade coupon only earned something like 500 miles?? I'm not sure of the reduced amount as I stopped earning the upgrades. And I'm not even sure how AA does upgrades these days since I don't fly them much anymore.

My upgrade rate as a NW low-level wasn't anywhere near 90%. Perhaps because I flew the mostly in/out of MSP on flights full of more elite folks than me.

I will admit that my opinions are skewed more by the quality of the coach product than availability of the domestic upgrade. On NW, I dreaded flying Y and obsessed about whether I could get an exit row. On AA, Y is much nicer and (while I still like exit rows) I don't obsess about where I sit.

The only time I even try to upgrade on AA is when I'm flying with someone who will get a kick out of it. On most aircraft, there is at least one seat in coach that is just as good as F - if not better. With AA Gold status, I can usually grab that seat online when I book my ticket.

If AA starts jamming more seats into the planes I fly, then my opinion changes dramatically.

Yep - that was a nice AA benefit that got ripped a year or two ago. I did a lot of "triple miles" flying as a Plat by trading back the earned upgrades. Sort of a bummer when that one went away...

As a new member of this group I will only add a quick note. Having been a long time UA member, I swithced to DL secondary to problems at IAD. DL with its new rules has forced me to go back to UA as.

I flew NW a lot in the past. Acculumated about 150000 flight miles over several years. I was satisfied as I didn't have any expectations. I liked the fact that certain coach fares upgraded automatically to First if space was available. I typically flew these fares as I never seemed to fly enough to get status, don't know why and I was a newbie flyer at the time.

2 jobs later I found myself by chance on a UAL flight. The major difference I noticed was the inflight entertainment. I then projected ahead to the future. If I was traveling with my daughter to Hawaii (a goal I had), which plane would she rather be on. I also learned that UAL provided kids meals. When I saw the personal screens on the 777 I was sold.

The last two years I have about 80000 miles on UAL. This year I'll end up somewhere between 25-30000. UAL has captured my business.

Last year I did my own comparison between UAL and NW. NW makes a strong play with its unlimited elite upgrades. I live in NW dominated territory as I am about 90 miles from DTW. It seems the mileage bonus at entry level elite is 50% vs 25% for UAL. NW also used 'real' jets at my local airprt, LAN. I decided to give NW another shot.

Alas the first flight I took on NWA was delayed. I got to sit in coach and compare the offerings. Though I could get comped status and use elite privileges for myself, when I traveled with my family on awards to Hawaii I would be coach.

My opinion is that UAL provides a better flight product than NW. First class on NW domestically is simply a bigger seat with more leg room than coach. This is not much better than E+ with an empty middle seat. In fact I could say that I prefer E+ with an empty middle over First, if in First the seat next to mine is occupied.

I have used United to fly to Hawaii on award for myself, my wife, and my daughter. I am going a second time this december. I made the reservations in February for travel in the Christmas time frame. I have been told this is the worst time to get an award seat to Hawaii, yet on UAL I was successful. I checked the NW award availability at the same time and found absolutely nothing. I have since heard many grumblings about the difficulty of getting NW awards to Hawaii.

How will you use your affiliation with your FF program? Are you mainly concerned with domestic upgrades? Use NW. Do you want the most comfortable planes? Use UA. Do you want to be able to use an award? In my experience use UAL. Your destiations/dates will certainl vary from mine. Take a look at http://usr.v7.com/wpaa/ to see if NW is available to where you want to go.

I haven't flown AA enough to give an adequate comparison. I flew Delta to Hawaii on an award and thought their planes were vary old. I did like that they only required 30000 miles for Hawaii Awards. For 3 seats that is a savings of 15000 miles. They have modified their awards effective next year that removes this advantage. Delta also has a more limited schedule to the West Coast than UAL. In reviewing their FF program, they offer nothing significantly better than UA. Their frequent fliers also seem to be up in arms over the changes to the FF program this year.

This is how I would rank the 3 programs: UAL, Delta, NW.