profhoff

I wrote UA back and they replied within a few hours confirming that both me and my husband would be receiving 10,000 miles. Obviously, the response was generic, but what was impressive was the response time and the responsiveness.

For now, this is enough to keep us with UA - but try the *A international partners for TATL.

Not such a bad ending, all things considered.

WineCountryUA

10K miles is roughly equivalent to $150-$200 -- seems a little weak

chinatraderjmr

A Lear is not made for TATL travel. I don't normally fly private. The few times I have it's been as the guest of one of my suppliers in Dubai. But the ONE time I splurged in my life for private was for me & my GF going from SJD (Cabo) up to L.A. it was a Lear & yes, it was nice to leave on our own time & not deal w all the airport crap but once we were back in L.A., I wish we had flown UA & I had my money back in my pocket

Unimatrix One

Unfortunately no. Only ANA elites.

Zaynab

I love VS (Virgin) TATL. You will have a stopover in LHR or MAN. And possibly a separate ticket from the UK to your final destination as VS does not offer connecting flights.
But VS Upper Class does give you a rock star feeling.

gailwynand

But you can ask..If you are *G and there is space they might accommodate you.

SkiAdcock

I'd say the responsiveness was that you emailed Smisek & your letter was well-written. If you had gone the regular customer service email, you probably would have taken your next 3 int'l trips by the time you heard back from UA.

Cheers.

joebeenyc

OR as we like to call the SQ JFK-FRA at the office. "The Joe Special". LOL

weero

The hull yes. But the 380 seats have been installed long after the lie-flat design was a done deal. It was a mere tactic decision to cripple the 380 Business in order to quench internal competition between different aircraft.

The A380 seats are actually slightly worse than the older models in the sense that they do not have a compartment for your glasses.

NYC1K

[QUOTE=GBadger;19388626]As someone who's switched *from* DL to UA, I'll say this:
- UA is currently undergoing very similar things that DL underwent 3 years ago.
- DL J is pretty decent. DL food (in Y and J) is generally better than UA.
- DL EC is a small step up from UA E+, but not much.
- DL award miles are much harder to use (IME) than UA.- *A is much better than SkyTeam. Having said that, for Europe SkyTeam is not bad either.
- DL FOs likely have better upgrade chances, in general, than UA silver (on domestic flights).[/QUOTE]

See (Bold).

I don't think the OP would care much about miles and Y to C upgrades if she/he was comfortable paying for C or F for TATL travel.

eefor jfp

My mom used to pay for C when she came to visit once or twice a year. As a retiree with a fairly decent pension she could afford Z fares but it was sure nice to get every fourth trip free.

So even if profhoff can afford to pay for biz, it isn't horrible to be able to use miles to cover a trip once in a while. And if that is the case, UA is still probably the best program to collect with. I would just fly Swiss and Lufthansa and NZ instead of United and credit miles to UA.

profhoff

Based on all the discussion here, and my embarrassment at paying so much for so little, I started looking into using miles to upgrade to business first for next year's trip to BCN and IST, probably RT LAX-BCN-IST. I went online and checked the box that is supposed to search for upgrades with miles and every single flight on every single leg showed not available for upgrade. It bright humiliating red letters!

The seat maps show that business is basically empty. I called the A premier desk and the agent said the seats probably aren't released yet but I should buy coach tickets and request an upgrade and that United would release the seats to me in my order on the waitlist.

I asked when the seats would be available for upgrade and she didn't know. I asked how many seats would be available for upgrade and she didn't know. I asked if I would be guaranteed an upgrade if I used her method to waitlist for the upgrade and she said no.

So, I'm not sure what to do at this point. I have enough miles to upgrade two tickets, but as of today, there are no upgrades. Should I check every day? Is there anyway to know when upgrade for miles seats will be released for upgrade?

Meanwhile, I'm also now trying to figure out how to get cheap business seats LAX-CDG or SNA-CDG. Today the fares are around $4500 each. Does it get cheaper if I wait? I checked AC as some recommended and it will take too long.

When I flew biz in the past, it seemed like a good deal, but this year it seems like a complete waste of money, so I'm open to suggestions.