i have flown us airways almost exclusively for the last 5 years, currently fly about 150,000 miles annually (all leisure, and on my own dime), and have been chairman's preferred with them for the last two or three years. i was very supportive and continued to fly them during their recent sojourn through ch 11, but sadly, i have recently come to the conclusion that us airways is now probably on its deathbed. it may take another 18-24 months, but unless something miraculous occurs, i'll bet we're without us airways before too long. so i need to learn about other programs and hopefully status-match somewhere else. the problem is that although i consider myself an expert about us airways' dividend miles program, i know virtually nothing about other airlines' progrmas. i know that some of them are now not awarding miles (or are awarding fractions of total miles flown) on flights in certain fare classes, and i have read that some (most?) programs don't status-match to their top tiers.

i have searched the ft database, hoping to find a concise comparison of the different programs' policies/strengths/weaknesses, but most of what i could find is incomplete or obsolete or both. if anyone knows a lot about the different programs and would be willing to spoonfeed me with a quick-and-dirty summary of how they compare to each other, i'd really appreciate it. thanks.

-- he who slacks.

Give an idea of your travel patterns, and what elite benefits and award choices are most important to you. The advice can be more tailored specifically to your needs.

Love your user name!

If you want to dump US, your main choice is DL in terms of a primary carrier. Of course, flying US or DL metal you can go a couple different directions with FF miles...

UA's program is huge and the airline is too darned big to go totally Chapter 7. Therefore, you could continue to fly US with its strong timetable at CHS and accrue UA miles.

I don't know whether UA will comp you a status or not, but since you know the counter/gate people at CHS, you might get courteous and respectful treatment (thanks to your Chairman's status) even as you are building UA miles/status.

Just curious: what makes you think US is about to disappear?

To add to pinniped's point, as one of the strengths of the CO and NW programs is unlimited domestic upgrades for elites, jumping to them out of CHS doesn't make a lot of sense since your first leg will always be on an RJ. Also, assuming you do a fair bit of international travel to hit 150K as a leisure traveler, NW and CO have pretty significant limits on which int'l fares are upgradeable, even as a top-tier elite

I'd go CO/NW. The ARJ to DTW has FC. If you fly domestically the free, unlimited upgrades are great. Personally I think CO is the best. Clean planes, upgrades, and pretty good inflight service. I agree the lifespan of US in limited. Good luck in your choice. I think if you try CO you'll be happy. I fly US on occasion due to the UA/US alliance and CO is superior.

Sort of in your same boat with DL; although don't belive their demise is imminent. Actually if I were on the East Coast I would have thought US Air was a good program. DL has completed decimated their frequent flyer program; CO apparently has a good program, but went with DL on their lower fares. I'm going to stick with DL and fly NW a lot this year just to see how it goes; over 200k MQM this year on DL. Look at all of these forums and Randy Peterson also has really good comparisons. Good luck & happy flying!

thanks to all for your input -- i haven't had a chance to check this thread until now and was pleasantly surprised to find so many responses.

to answer the couple of questions y'all asked:

i think us airways is circling the drain for a few reasons. first, even after bankruptcy reorganization, they have some of the highest cost-per-seat-mile numbers in the industry, and are continuing to hemorrhage money. they did manage to post a meager "profit" in q2 this year, but only because they factored in an enormous bailout check from the government. in q3 they lost another $90 million dollars, and while the numbers compare favorably to q3 '02, they can't keep going like this.

on top of those problems, they have contentious relationships with labor, who at this point would rather see the company drown than concede anymore money -- i.e., there ain't much to cut back form here.

AND their frequent fliers are becoming increasingly restless about the depths to which their first-class product has sunk over the last two years (see what i mean over on the us forum -- at least 25% of the threads reference this problem).

my suspicions were bolstered by some recent industry analysts' and market analysts' comments made during the past several weeks. us airways' reissued stock, which has lost 25% of its value already since being relisted 6 weeks ago, was the only airline stock not to rise in the recent market rally, and is now rated "sell" by most of the anaylsts who follow the market, presumably because they foresee another ch 11/ch 7 in the company's future.

question 2, about my flying habits and what's important to me in a ff program. well, i only fly out of chs about 30% of the time because the fares here are so prohibitively expensive. mostly i fly out of sav, rdu, and atl (although for some int'l itineraries, i fly out of chs). it's amazing what you'll do to save a few hundred bucks a pop when you pay for your own tickets and fly as much as i do (i'm usually buying tickets for me and soon-to-be-mrs. overpaidslacker, so that money adds up).

upgrades (domestic and international), fair allocation of ff miles, and accessiblity of award tickets are probably the things i care most about in a program (is there anything else?)

sorry for the verbosity. thanks again for everybody's insight. hope this helps you help me.

-- he who slacks

[This message has been edited by OverpaidSlacker (edited Dec 15, 2003).]

Slacker:

I, too, have been a loyal US Priority Gold Plus/Chairman's Preferred member for the last 10-15 years and have become concerned with the direction the airline has taken over the past couple years. As a result, after bankruptcy last year, I started flying Continental and found their product to be excellent. The only problem is that there are so many Platinum's that I NEVER got an upgrade until I became Platinum, afterwhich I don't think I've ever flown coach. However, next year may be different since CO will start taking class of service into consideration before upgrading. Since I buy lots of discount tickets, I could be relegated back to coach, inspite of my Platinum status. If that happens, I'll be looking elsewhere again. We'll see.

Nevertheless, even though I gave CO the most business, I found it hard to completely sever the relationship with US and have qualified for Gold for 2004. With over 2 million miles on US, I still enjoy flying them and hope that they survive. Certainly, the Star Alliance will bring many advantages and options for using my miles. But, hopefully, the feeder traffic from the alliance airlines should help to bolster revenue to some degree and, I pray, keep the airline afloat.

Whatever you do, AVOID DELTA, by all means! Their frequent flyer program sucks and forget trying to use your miles to go anywhere worthwhile. I've tried to book trips to Hawaii, Africa and the Caribbean and have never been successful. I'm sure I'd have more luck if I were elite, but I can't remember the last time I had a GOOD experience on Delta.

Good luck in your search. But keep flying US, in the meantime!

Slacker, you sound more and more like a good candidate for UA. My bias is almost always to try and use the carrier that is strongest for in the area, and in this case that is US by a long shot. UA mileage accrual alleviates your biggest concern with US: the chance that they go Ch. 7 and nobody purchases the Dividend Miles program.

I was never a big UA fan myself, but the 1K's seem to like the program a lot. I was PremEx for a couple of years, a so-so mid-tier status. The real value of the program is when you hit 1K.

DL doesn't value discounted coach travelers and CO/NW would probably cause you a lot of unneeded RJ segments. It's too bad AA isn't a strong player at any of those cities: I like their FF program a lot at the low/mid-elite level, and I know EXP's generally like the program as well.