Azmordean

Not yet. That said, I'm an experienced traveler - I use UA a *lot* mainly because they basically own IAD for all intents and purposes and are close in SFO. I always check Kayak, but flying out of either airport, UA simply offers the best selection of non-stops. Price wise, they are usually within a few bucks of being the cheapest.

I also have the excellent United Select Visa (the old one that earns 3miles for United purchase, 2 for dining/gas/grocery, 1 for everything else). That plus a few transcons and the miles rack up fast.

For those reasons, I usually focus my travel on United unless the price difference is meaningful. I am actually VERY close to status this year on United. If I push it, I could probably hit Premier Silver. That said... I'm not sure how much Premier Silver is really worth. E+ at booking would be huge, but since that benefit was removed, I'm not sure Silver is really that much of an upgrade, esp on elite heavy SFO-IAD. I could get most of the benefits and then some with the Club credit card.

On SFO-IAD, UA and VX seem to be about the same price most of the time. I prefer UA for the miles (Elevate being based on spend rather than miles is not good for long flights, especially a long flight at a good price) and for E+. But the WiFi thing may push me to VX for at least some of my trips.

PortableGorilla

Are the current F seats the standard sCO or sUA seats or something else? How about the future seats? I really don't like the sCO seats and am hoping they go with something else...

DrDesmo

Yeah, like my DEN > SFO plane the other day. No power or IFE ... But pretty blue leather

Cheers,
Adam

LarkSFO

Excellent analysis. You touch on the points that are important to you.

My new conclusion: You should stick with UA.

I have the select visa too, and I like it. The 5000 PQM (for UA.com spend) are an additional big benefit that I value.

NickP 1K

UA proposed Wifi with Video streamed content is storing the video content LOCALLY; it is NOT coming through the broadband connection. A few IFE suppliers already had this on their product plans before United announced it.

UAL4life

The F seats on the new aircraft resemble very closely to the United Express E170 seats. Though, we will naturally, probably, get CO style seats when they decide to finally outfit these aircraft properly.

GoAmtrak

Closely-related thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...38-planes.html

UA-NYC

They may be the "temporary" AS seats they've been using - not clear if they're delivering any "dark birds" with the big boxy sCO F seats that I and many others dislike.

But that brings up a good question going forward - we know they're choosing all-sCO seats for new int'l birds. And I'm guessing all existing 73x deliveries will get the checkerboard pattern seats and boxy F. But when the new big orders start (like the new 150), are they going to continue with those things...

Indelaware

+1

The only good IFE is ch. 9 ATC and of course watching the map on long flights. The rest, particularly live tv, is a distraction from the joy of flying.

jacroweORD

took a flt back from the west coast to ORD last nite and there was no entertainment. no music, no movie...zippo....never seen that before...made the flt extraordinarily long.

SEA1K4EVR

You must have been on one of these: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...west-739s.html

jacroweORD

yes, musta been...as a new plane they had the most uncomfortable F seats ever...i could actually feel the metal in the seat on my back. Crew was great tho!

Noodlesz

Just flew the 737-900 last month from EWR-SEA. 5 weeks old the attendant said, was quite excited to be on a brand new plane. The excitement quickly ended once I realized it was the equivalent of a Civic DX, nice and shiny but no features other than a seat and engine, lol. (AC was included, but the window didn't roll down.)

Here's a quick review if you're interested.
http://hktravelblog.com/2012/08/unit...r-sea-nrt-hkg/

Buster CT1K

I flew a dark 737-900 SFO to BOS on Sunday. No IFE but at least the cabin was relatively quiet (no loud talkers) and new, and I moved to a seat with an empty seat next to it.

UA really should get it fixed.

DiscountBusinessFlyer

I flew the Boeing 737-900 from IAH to SJC last night. It was a brand spanking new aircraft, and reasonably comfortable in the F cabin. What was surprising, though, was that there were no Audio or Video amenities - no overhead video, not even somewhere to plug in a headset. (Of course the good thing with that was that I spared Mr Smisek's 'welcome'!)

You'd be hard-pressed to purchase a new car with no audio entertainment.. how does UA manage to score a new plane without it? I guess they did not upgrade to the 'sports package'.