United vs US Airways Programs
 

I am tossing up different frequent flier programs. United and US Airways are both star alliance members so you can claim each airline's points with the other.

I'm interested in knowing people's thoughts comparing the two ?

One problem I have with US is the high change fees they have on award travel.

Unless you are a Chairman's Preferred member you pay a $250 change fee for transatlantic or transpacific ticket changes.

On the plus side, US does not have starnet blocking so award availability is better.

The award related fees are higher but at least for now, in many instances the mileage requirements are still low. US didn't bump their award levels in the past year like many airlines.

Example:
US - Europe: Y:50K C:80K F:125K
US - N.Asia: Y:60K C:90K F:120K
US - NZ/AU: Y:80K C:110K F:140K

And there's seemingly no mileage limit, meaning you can travel LAX to SYD via BKK, HKG, and SIN if you wanted to and found the space. Oh, and generally a perfect match between what ANA inventory shows available and what US agents can see.

Other than this specific award flexibility (fees notwithstanding), if you value the service level more, go with UA. If you travel enough for 1K, the SWU's and CR-1's are far more valuable than the near-nothing you get from US as a top tier elite.

In my experience, U.S. Air miles are easier to use on Star Alliance international flights, but UAL miles are easier to get. I collect both whenever they are free or cheap.

Can't say which program is better, per se. But I think most folks would say that UA is a better airline with better planes, reliability, service, seat options, etc. None of this is to say that UA is great. But US is held in pretty low regard in lots of quarters (including at its own Flyertalk Forum) for lots of reasons. You might want to take these factors into account in making your choice of program and airline.

how/where do you fly and how often? What class of service do you normally buy? What is your goal for the miles? (upgrading, free tickets or ...?)

If you are interested in using miles for a partner, I'd accumulate on US Airways. United blocks some availability on partners (See the United Forum thread on Starnet blocking.).

Mike

Remarkably, I have found US award travel to be a sweet easy bargain when it comes to inter-regional overseas flights. It's the only reason that I keep my US ff account. For example, going TPE to ICN roundtrip is a bargain at 20k miles, especially when they put you on Thai Airways. Thai Airways' service and classiness puts both UA and US to shame. And the partner *A award seats have seemed really easy to book through US. UA seems to make it quite a pain to book partner *A award seats.
US miles used to be easy to get with their cc offers, with first year annual fee waived. But the fee waiving seems to have disappeared.

I have both and my experience is that United is far better for award seat availability on United than US is for seats on US. US miles are only better for Star Alliance awards (excluding United flights, which they also block).

Is this blocking new or is it just rare availability?
I've only tried once somewhat recently (fall of 2008) and had no problems--used US ff miles successfully to book UA SJC-ORD. For a second award seat on the same flights, I used UA ff miles.

Keep in mind that, at the end of October, CO will also join the Star Alliance. As a CO plat, that means I want to target specific awards with my UA and US miles as I won't really be participating in their programs after that date.

For a newcomer, it would also be worth considering the CO program -- especially since CO is currently our country's best airline. How the specific benefits will stack up, though, is unknown. The current weakness in the CO program is award availability, but that might improve once the Star offerings are added to the mix.

With CO, UA and US in the mix, though, Star will be a very compelling choice for US-based travellers.

delete

United has economy plus where once you have reached Premier you get more legroom.

That's a wonderful benefit.

I would argue that CO is only the best of the main carriers.
Southwest makes a lot more sense than any of them in many ways. Unfortunately, for corporate domestic travel, my own company and its AMEX supplier discourage use of Southwest. It's too bad because Southwest is so much easier and cheaper to work with for last minute cancellations, etc. The corporation does not permit us to travel first or business class on the company's dime. It is a royal pain because most of our travel is booked in the final week or so (ie middle seat next to the toilets), and our travel is sometimes overseas! Of course, that does not prevent us from using elite status, etc for getting upgrades for ourselves.

How far can we go off topic here before getting banned permanently from the forum here?

Partner award travel with CO miles doesn't seem so bad at the moment. I just used a bunch of CO miles to fly North America to Africa on KLM. The challenge was when there were ticketing problems in Africa. KLM couldn't solve them. I had to phone CO in North America to fix it, and 1-800 US numbers may not be dialable from Africa/overseas. You had to find the CO Newark number which only operated 08h00-21h00 ET, M-F or something like that. And that puts you in a bind if you have to go through the automatic phone operator thing or get put on hold because telephone service overseas isn't always reliable enough to last through a hold.

I don't know if *A, US or UA award travel has similar odds and ends.

I'm also in a similar boat. I've got 50K on UA; 71K on US; and 27K on CO. I don't fly any one of them enough to be elite level by any stretch of the imagination. Does your answer change if you know you're never going to be elite?

With CO coming to the fold of *A, I'm contemplating accruing everything there rather than on US or UA.

Aren't US miles still just as easy to get, meaning churning is allowed, they are just a little more expensive?

$79 for 25k miles comes out to ~$400 for 125k miles, enough to get to much of the world first class.

Whoa. Talk about a rock and a hard place. What a horrible choice. I guess I'd probably pick UA. Maybe I'd rather walk, though.

Even Chairman's Preferred members pay the change fees. I have been granted several "one-time" courtesy exemptions, but that is out of the norm.

Something's not correct. The redeposit fee (same fee as award change fee) is waived for CP. Cancel and redeposit the miles, get the refund for taxes, and book a new award. It's what you have to do anyway since US is unable to change a *A award without canceling the ticket and starting over. Well, they can if it's all US metal, but who does that willingly?

http://www.usairways.com/awa/content...chairmans.aspx

Wow tough call - so many mediocre choices :(

I think the key questions for you are how you plan to accumulate miles and how you plan to spend them.

If you will accumulate by flying domestic economy class on UA then you might prefer UA as your status will get you E+ seating and some other benefits at the airport.

If you will accumulate by flying international (any class) you might be best off crediting to BMI as you will get some nice bonuses. However if you are flying UA and will hit 100k then you might appreciate the SWUs.

If you will be redeeming for domestic flights within USA then UA is the best choice as redemption is usally pretty easy and much better than US.

However if you will be redeeming for international business class travel then your best choice would be BMI, and to a lesser extend US. BMI (and US?) require fewer miles, but more importantly, neither appears to engage in the horrific *net blocking.

I see no reason to credit miles to UA anymore until UA decides to honor its obligations to provide saver international business class awards on both UA and *A partners.

That's not necessarily true. Just yesterday I changed the first two legs of a three-airline Star Alliance international F ticket with no impact to the rest of the itinerary. (I also did a more complicated change last year, involving a change in airlines, and did not lose the remainder of the itinerary.)

It was an issue to me in yesterday's case because all the remaining flights were no longer available in F and I didn't want to lose them. The agent said there was no need to impact them and proceeded to change the two flights I wanted changed. As with too many things on US, it's all about the agent you get.

On the broader subject of US vs. UA, at the top tier, UA 1Ks have a significant advantage over US CPs in the ability to change award tickets without penalty. They're costly on US. As has been mentioned, redeposits are free, but with complicated itineraries, you're often waiting for one or two flights to become available and don't have the luxury of scrapping the entire trip and re-booking.

On the other hand, the lack of restrictions on Star Alliance award tickets (specifically UA's StarNet filtering) and more flexible routings, without the mileage maximums, make it much easier to book those award tickets as a US elite.

Thread resurrection
 

I really think this is a worthy discussion in light of the upcoming Continental/UA merger since after Sept 2011, UA vs US Air will be the only two choices for U.S.-based *A FFP's. Let's compare/contrast in terms of:

1) Earning potential via flights on original carrier
2) Earning potential via flights on alliance partners
3) Earning potential via non-flights (Shopping Portal, partners, etc.)
4) Award redemption on original carrier
5) Award redemption on *A partners
6) Low/Mid/High tier status benefits

Are there a lot of mile-earning opportunities for United? I'm targeted for CO card (50k) til the end of the month, but I've been wondering if it's worth the pull. I have a few (~18k) CO miles left over from when I was in grad school in Cleveland, but primarily fly US now since I live in Philly.

If I get the CO card, I'll have ~68k miles that will go over to UA, but not sure I'll be able to earn many more on UA.

I've had the UA for several years now, earning miles on the UMP Visa, flights (obv), hotels, occasional car rentals, and MP dining. And in the time I've had the card, I don't think I've ever redeemed on a UA flight. I've flown US a couple of times, and LH several times internationally. I went with UA primarily because of *A and I've been pretty satisfied with my redemption options.

All things equal, UA is superior.

But, as always, this depends on which airport you're out of, route equipment, etc.

Lastly, keep a close ear to the upcoming UA changes.

I tried booking a flight to India and needed to get back from East Asia (China, Japan, HK) as the lsat leg and Co.com showed tons of availability on UA/CO, but multiple US agents said they could not see it. We're talking about 2-3 flights a day over a 30 day period. I finally found something on singapore, but it was pretty darn hard. Has anyone else had this problem?

Was this last leg on flights operated by Continental Express? I have always had issues with those - they are easy to redeem with Continental OnePass miles but US Air (and UA at least until recently) don't see them available because they are well not on Continental but on its affiliate. I knew this was the problem because on the route I was interested in (IAH - SHV) there are about 9 daily flights of which 2 are operated by CO itself and they were readily available for US/UA redemption while the rest were CO Express operated and (again at least until recently) you could easily book these with OnePass miles but not US Dividend Miles

Equipment aside, how is UA's FF program better than US Air's FF program?

Slight advantage to UA due to strategically positioned coastal hubs that allow for longer routings. 1P's 100% bonus (which seems to be going away soon) is also good, but like I said is destined to disappear.

More or less equal

Essentially negligible but IME slight advantage to US

Advantage to UA, US envoy awards are pretty hard to get

Advantage to US, no Starnet blocking, looser routing rules and more generous award chart.

As US silvers definitely have the edge over UA 2P in terms of UDU and everything- because US' elite pool is not as bloated as UA's

One not so widely known benefit with US is that you can earn status miles on non-Star partners. I was pleasantly surprised to find I hit silver after a few QR flights.

No, they were on CO and United, but US Airways couldn't see them. And this was with 3-5 different agents who all said it is pretty common. I did notice that UA/CO flights in the next 1-2 months were available, just further out there were many issues.

Many other airlines have this with other non-alliance partners, most notably AS with AA and DL.

Looking on each FFP's award chart (Econ/Biz/First):
United (LINK):
U.S. to Europe = 30/50/67.5
U.S. to North Asia = 32.5/60/70

US Airways (LINK):
U.S. to Europe = 60/100/125
U.S. to North Asia = 60/90/120

Is UA one-way and US round-trip?

Yes, UA awards are one-way. There's no way you're heading to Europe in Business for 50K miles (with the exception of Flying Blue promo awards, but that's a different story ;))

Also note US Airways has off-peak redemption rates. Jan 15 - Feb 28 you can go to Europe for 35k roundtrip, and if you're a cardholder I think that's reduced by 5k to 30k miles. Which is the cheapest mile deal there is to get to Europe that I'm aware of (the FB sales have way more YQ).

is this only on US metal?

Yes, of course. Also keep in mind that some discounted *A economy fares only qualify for 50% mileage credit on US, whereas you can still get 100% on UA/CO (I'm thinking about SA, LH, but there may be others). IIRC, this is a fairly recent change. Considering that UA/CO allow one-way awards and US does not, I'd say that lately the US advantage has diminished.

Which ones, apart from AS? Any in Star? Since this thread was comparing US to UA, i thot it was to be noted. But I'm interested in hearing about other major airlines that do it.

In 2011, I'd go UA. Their route map is far larger than US and even though they're alliance partners, things are always a little better on your "native" metal.

UA has low fees on awards, flexible one-ways, and E+. And when US craters (which I think it eventually will), there's a decent chance that regulators might allow AA to absorb it, not UA. So that could throw your stash in the direction of Oneworld, not *A.

Only "pros" for US are reduced award levels for CC holders and apparently less Starnet blocking.

Last week, four of us flew MCI-YVR (with connections), 2 on US roundtrip and 2 on UA/AA, one-way on each. The UA and AA segments all performed fine. Both US directions where canceled due to "aircraft availability". (No real weather issues anywhere.) And at the airports, the US people were disorganized and unhelpful. We weren't auto-confirmed on later flights the way UA and AA do. We couldn't even use a kiosk to rebook. We had to find humans to talk to, which was a challenge. Simple tickets, US metal, ticketed by US. It just seems that operationally-speaking, this is a dying company. I know it's just one experience but I've always felt like UA handled irrops in general better. Overall, it seems like a more robust company better able to adapt to day-to-day challenges of running an airline.

I know I would never want to fly US regularly, even with top-tier status. UA as a 1K was fantastic and UA as a lower elite is still not bad.

However, conversely more fares flown on US metal qualify for full mileage credit on partner programs than UA/CO. Take my favourite *A program Aegean for example, all US flights count as 100% mileage, but most discounted UA/CO fares only offer 50%.

UA do offer one-way awards, but no stopover on those.