Derrico

I know Brasila, you are on many threads expressing your opinion that UA was the greatest airline in the world. Its all subjective, but I don't think yours is the majority opinion.

Bad UA employee attitudes were one of the reasons I started to reconsider my move from CO to UA. Don't take my word for it, go back into the happy world of the pre-merger section of United.

_________________________________________________

lax-ticketing-agent-im-embarrassed to be a UA employee

Rude Employees at DCA this time not IAD.

GA refuses to check someone in

UA Agent will not clear upgrade says how would I know, I just work here

Has UA Considered Terminating Problem Employees?

__________________________________________________


There are just a few I skimmed off the top. (Yes CO has stories like this too, but far fewer.) I have been flying UA for several years now. All old hand UA people know there has been an issue with employee morale. Union managment disconnects/disputes being taken out on passengers.. etc etc..

I know you are gung-ho anti-Continental, and I respect that opinion, but are you seriously suggesting that United was all roses pre-merger?

Bow Rider

I am definitely jumping ship. My travel is all personal and on my own dime, so I have options. The 2009 DEQM promo, and finding FT, got me going and I had loads of fun the last two years. Going to Hawaii, Hong Kong and Australia were inspired solely by UA's frequent flyer program and the whack jobs here on FT that get so much out of it Flying to Anchorage for an hour to make 1K in December is still a great story, my only true MR.

My biggest complaint about the merger is that low fares used to be available on mainline nonstops. Now they are only for regional jets with multiple stops. That sucks donkey d****, if I can get away with saying that, and is a deal breaker for me.

When all the flights have UA flight numbers, I dread the prospect of having to figure out if my plane has E+ or not. How will a person even do that?

I am thinking I'll just throttle back flying for awhile, maybe rent a car and drive. The USA is a beautiful and fascinating country. When CO (I agree that UA is dead) has converted the entire fleet to E+ I'll take another look.

But if I'm going to be sitting in E-, it ain't gonna be on a regional jet if I can help it and CO will mean nothing to me.

FlightNurse

Yes CO has stories too.

In short, flying from EWR-PHX in FC. Once airborne, the lead FA tells the other FA that he was serving FC as she didn't want to do. She said it loud enough for all to hear in the FC cabin.

Come to find out the aircraft wasn't catered correctly, only one entree was on board,the salad , beard and desert either. So this poor guy serves the entree and soup that is it. The lead FA comes back, sit in the jump seat and complains about her job and how rude the passengers . After 45 minutes of trying to ignoring her, I finally rang the FA bell, she rolls her eyes and ordered the other FA to answer. I loudly declined his service and told the lazy FA she was the one I wanted. I was informed she was on her break. I got up went to the back of the plane and asked one of the FA's in the back to get the captain. I wasn't not going to listen to her whine, ..... and complain like that in front me or the other passengers. I guess she pissed off the other FA's too, they were very happy to call the Captain. The captain appeared a couple of minutes later, and I told him everything. When we landed each FC pax was handed a complaint form by the GA.

Never have I had a FA act like this, I received travel voucher for the problem.

time2go1st

That seems to be a very big issue; if you wanna jump, better be sure your target has some long-term viability. For those nervous about AA, who know and despise DL, and not in a locale to pick AS, not too many choices left. And I do really sympathize with those in SEA/DEN and the like; what are those guys in central NJ supposed to do, go to US out of PHL -- this is the meaning of a real oligopoly.

Otherwise, most interesting thread; for many here, the big issue today is the CO treatment of elites. Well what about NON-elites, does that therefore make the picture brighter for them; have no realistic hope here to get elite status and I am not exactly alone, just want a reasonable price for a reasonable product offering, and a reasonable awards program; no point in expecting perks or pampering which won't happen for anybody going forward, or so it seems.

Having said all that, from where I sit there is ONE substantial benefit that UACO has but nobody else domestically; if you see some of my past posts I may sound like a broken record so sorry, but even out of LAX where there are other options, it is called E-Plus; wish AA or someone else would/could compete with that game-changer, but not so far...

Luvs2snowbordbut1kSEA

Unfortunately, I live in South TX now and my options are very limited... AA doesn't support the routes I really need, and I hate SWA... although less and less as COUA looks more like them. So I will continue on, I might hit 1K again this year... tired of the $misek way though. Cheaper is not always better.

akatuva

Outside the service and elite benefit issues, the changes in requal for 1K now requiring 120 segments changed the way I fly UA. I used to use UA for all of my domestic short haul biz travel, typically in high fare categories.

I have switched all of that business to AA and will hit EXP the 2nd week in August. I will requal for 1K on United by doing cheap fare mileage runs to get 100K miles and will probably wait to get there in November so as not to earn SWU's too quickly.

Next year, I'll use the first quarter to compare life as an EXP and 1K and then if I am not going to have enough travel to qualify top tier on both, will go one way or the other. Right now, I would lean towards to AA because even as a PLT, I am hitting pretty close to the same upgrade percentage that I have had as a 1K, and that should go up to close to 100% if I hit EXP. Also, the SWUs are starting to become an issue with the lack of time-of-booking confirmability on most international routes, compared with the AA eVIP's good on just about any fare.

LarkSFO

Please be sure to share your routes and dates with us please!

Majority opinion is that there are no cheap UACO fares to be found anywhere... (I don't completely agree with this, but I have noticed a tendency towards higher prices. And I have seen very few fares that justify a Mileage Run...)

Thanks for sharing your AA experiences... Many here are tempted; In my case so far SFO has been the deciding factor against AA. Even with the great new T2 at SFO, AA continues to reduce service... I guess that is what happens when you don't live in a cornerstone city.

Out of the blue, Alaska just gifted me MVP status... I am going to check the AS forum to see if this is really worth anything. If it is, maybe I'll direct some of my west coast (PDX, SEA) travel towards AS...

akatuva

Not saying there are a ton of options, but coming out of LA, the routes to ORD get you 7k eqm with the current DEQM bonus, and I have found a good number of fares for under $300. I also grabbed a bunch of fares from the LA area to IAD earlier this year which came in at less than $300, but not DEQM.

I've got about 25k miles left to go this year and have gotten there with about 1/3rd of my normal spend on UA. I still have no idea why they decided to go the route they did with segment flyers, but I figured it was a good time to test out both UA and AA.

ijgordon

Reported by who? A bunch of anonymous disgruntled flyers on an internet message board? Plenty of 1ks/Plats are at 75% or higher.

mduell

I'll disagree with you here.
Seats: CO is ahead if you like centerline seats (UA's 6 middle-of-4 seats on the 747 fleet look grim), but UA has the advantage for windows (CO's 8L felt too enclosed, especially compared to 747UD). For both sitting and sleeping I prefer the UA cushion and leather.
IFE: The selection is about the same and I prefer UA's interface: less button pressing to get where you want to go and time and a progress indicator when watching a show.
Food: CO serves a better appetizer and dessert, but UA has the better entrees.
Service: Par for the course for US based airlines; pretty shocking after you've spent a week in Asian countries that put an emphasis on service.

I think you'd be best served by a younger, lower cost basis airline, although that last request is a bit tough.

mduell

There's still some options from highly competitive airports (like BOS) and high volume/low yield airports (central Florida).

seagar

It all depends what UAL does with the MM program. Change it, I'm gone.

prestonh

The already have devalued a 1MM bene with the premergence of the 75K level.

time2go1st

Right; so who would you suggest then...

AAExPlat

Yep. The ones that are at 75% or higher are the Plats/1ks who fly on expensive/refundable fares. My upgrade percentage in the last half of 2010 was a measly 35%, and even on cheap fares that is ludicrously low.

I do have 8 segments coming up though, so I guess I might get a glimpse of whether things have changed in the last 6-12 months.