Hi. In all likelihood, I'll be flying to Australia within the next few months and need advice on which airline to take - United or Qantas.

Does anyone have suggestions?

Thanks!

Depends what your priorities are. United has Economy Plus and a friendlier frequent flyer program; Qantas has better in-flight amenities and a peerless Australian domestic route network. There are many other variables.

See
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=375227
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=503487
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=321579

Remember too you can get to Australia on other airlines via connections in AKL, ICN, HKG, PPT and so on.

I think Quantas is better.

So far as I know, I did not had good experience with United. I flew with United many times and my family and I encountered problems with finding place to put our baggages since someone already occupied our baggage space. The man (United Air-staff) did not even care to give us a hand to put our baggages in the right place and my mom got very angry with him. The staff made a gesture of careless foretelling that he did not care his clients. The food was a simple sandwich and it was not very warm! United paid less funds for its staffs and its service due to financial problem. I think that United Arlines would not even exist in the next 10 years because of financial crisis. If im right...

However, I don't know much about Quantas because i never fly with Quantas but I hope that it is better than United and Im afraid that i could not give you a precise answer. Anyway, this is a little information/experience to share with you. Good Luck!

qantas has video in every seat, and also has direct flight from lax to mel.
united on the other hand is better when it comes to the mileage aquaral.

and also when it comes to redeeming miles, united is less miles for a ticket to australia than qantas. and in addition qantas has this stupid rule that you can only give a mileage ticket to a family member!! last time i flew on my friends miles, he just told qantas that i was his brother in law!!

Don't forget that you may be able to earn American Airlines miles on Qantas flights, since both companies belong to the Oneworld Alliance. Some restrictions apply.

I know of no such airline. Now if you are enquiring about QANTAS, I'd take it for First or Business, but go for UA if you can get a seat in their Y+. If you can't get Y+ on UA, then go for QF in ordinary WHY. You get seat-back videos whereas UA only have their old crappy projection screen.

Meals in WHY are both as good (or bad) as each other - but I'm thinking UA may be a touch better in some ways.

If FF points are important, the UA program is heaps better for redemptions (generally), but the QF program makes it easy to earn good points on short flights in Oz.

Is it just my imagingation, but isn't FT full of "comparison" threads at the moment (eg UA v/s QF or QF v/s CX etc)?

Thanks for all the advice. I just discovered that I can use my One Pass miles for business class seats on Qantas on the dates I need. A free business class ticket wins out over coach any day!

Thanks again.

non-native English speakers. Their grammar may be questionable, but their viewpoints are often refreshing, to say the least.
(And now, before the flame war begins...)

CONGRATULATIONS on getting QF award Business class seats on the dates you want. This is very uncommon but it's nice to know it happens. Do be sure to put in a request for your favourite seats. The QF Board on FT has many threads on the best seats. Habe a great trip!

aa will only give 75% of the miles if you fly on qantas, and they will give nothing if they themselves fly that route. e.g. if you fly round the world on oneworld ticket mel - lhr - jfk on british and then jfk - lax - mel on qantas, you will only get 75% of miles for the mel-lhr and then lax-mel, while from lhr-jfk-lax, you will get nothing since aa flies that route. (i know this from experience and learning the hard way, i received on aa for this trip about 14,000 miles, in comparism to star alliance where i would have received about 25,000 miles!)

I changed my dates and was able to book first class seats. Ridiculously excited by the thought of those stupid little amenities (la prairie kit, "sleeping suit," etc). Thanks again to all who offered advice.