Thinking of Switching, Which would you recommend?
 

United is really horrible to deal with these days :mad:. I have been a happy customer for years and even when things went wrong, they handled it properly but this year has been awful. Packed flights, no upgrades or not being put on the waitlist automatically, flight attendants and customer service reps hating their jobs and treating us properly.

(Sorry, stepping off the soap box now)

I am seriously looking into switching airlines wanting to know which ones are good or worth it. I've heard great things about Virgin, JetBlue but wanting a great airline that has alliances where I can still earn miles and use them for international. Any suggestions? :)

Semicharmed

Where do you live, fly to?

..and how many miles a year do you fly?

Im sorry, but if you want good international connections/award availability, United is the only way to go. Delta's miles are worthless, that's why they call them skypesos. AA is in the toilet, plus oneworld just sucks in general.

Fact of the matter is *A is the largest airline alliance, it has its benefits. You said so yourself, you have been a loyal customer for years, and this year hasn't lived up to your expectations. Care to elaborate? Packed flights? Not sure that's the airlines fault, i was under the impression they wanted to fill planes and make money, not fill a plane only 60% for maximum comfort.

No upgrades? What is your status level? I am Gold this year, and i have gotten most upgrades, granted i fly on non-busy days and only have 65k or so EQM this year.

If you want superb customer service 100% of the time, you best find a small airline. VX is good yes, but flies almost nowhere and has a network 1% the size of United. Jetblue is alright too, unless you want to fly to Australia or Asia or Europe or anywhere outside of North America.

Basically if you want a great alliance for international, its Skyteam or *A. *A is the larger of the two, and the miles you earn actually do something. I read somewhere that United has the best award seat availability of any US airline, i'm inclined to believe that.

Completely disagree. But, as others have said, who you switch to is really dependent on where you live and frequently travel to. I live in Colorado, and frequently travel to DC. Both UA hubs. I've switched to AA and am very happy. I have been treated extremely well by AA, and have found the added connections to be largely hassle-free thus far. I have cleared an upgrade on EVERY AA flight I've taken, unlike COdbaUA. AA values their elites, and oneworld, with BA, Quantas, and CX hardly "just sucks in general." I'd recommend switching to AA.

I'm just going to hate my upcoming Cathay award flight in first class knowing this, let alone my Qantas award flights in business class. Are you saying that UA offers superior service on Asia and Australia routes compared to One World, or that BA is an inferior carrier to Europe?

Care to expand on your negative views? How many miles have you racked up with One World to come to that viewpoint (for comparison, I'm around 1.5 million and still happy there)? I'd also note that as Gold at UA you're earning 50% bonus miles compared to the 100% bonus miles you'd earn at AA.

The only bit that annoys me about OW is the YQ on award bookings, making the miles worth significantly less.

Depends, maybe, let's see...
 

After 20 years of CO loyalty and trying my darnedest to give the new UA a chance, I recently jumped to AA. They did a status match to Exec Plat and I am 6/8 on domestic UGs. Domestic aircraft seem a little older but actually more comfortable, and I do love the WiFi. Have flown one TATL on AA and the plane was inferior (small bins, lousy IFE, poor coach legroom) but the soft product/service was at least equal, maybe even a little friendlier.

Much of my loyalty to CO was forged in the days when Gordon led the charge up from the bottom. I decided to support them as they made their valiant effort, accepting that improvement would take some time, and it paid off for a long time. Now, though, it has reached a level where the change is going in the other direction at UA/CO while at AA they are trying to emulate the old CO turnaround. I'll give them a chance. As a MMer I'll at least keep *G while I try out AA. If it turns out they suck then I'm back.

I will say that so far I find the UA clubs are a bit better but that's based on very limited experience.

And there's ways to work around that as it only involves award travel on BA and IB. I've yet to pay a single fuel surcharge and I do a lot of award travel. I used Alaska last weekend (no fuel surcharge) and AA to London in the summer (no fuel surcharge). Earlier in the year I was in Hong Kong with Cathay again (no fuel surcharge). Clearly a topic every AA flyer needs to educate themselves based on where they redeem miles.

Upgrade didn't clear an an EXP?

Thanks for that, I am a BA member and thought it was an alliance wide thing. Perhaps time for me to sign up to AA instead.

Of perhaps more relevance for the OP, what are the earning rules like between OW partners these days? I know you didn't used to be able to earn on AA/BA transatlantic if you weren't flying with your 'home' airline.

And what type of fares do you buy. And what benefits are most important to you in a program?
Well, UA offers many more destinations and routes into Asia that OW does (and infinitely more than the zero Qantas offers from the USA), and the flat beds in business or first don't completely suck. If you don't mind connecting in London then BA isn't bad, though I found their premium cabins underwhelming. If you'd rather avoid the extra few hours the LHR connection requires then BA isn't so useful.

That's changed with the joint venture (BA chart). You do have to watch out for deeply discounted coach on some partners which can accrue zero miles (Cathay) or 50% miles (Qantas) if booked under the operating carriers flight number. If you book the AA codeshare, though, full miles. AA does have a page on it's website for each partner spelling out the earning rules in detail. As a BA flyer, you might also want to look at the redemption charts as they may also differ (I know they do for Qantas members--I know one that has jumped to AA because of better redemption rates).

Have no idea if the OP needs this level of detail, though, as he has not been back to comment about his travel patterns.

I switched to ua from aa years ago, after ba + aa stranded my family at the airport. Aa and ba didn't have their act together and ba smirked at aa elites and their facilities in Asian countries sucked at that time. If your ow travel involves ba I would strongly recommend against taking your business to that alliance. I am still happy with ua even after their follies this year.

How about UA service in those cabins compared to Qantas/Cathay? Do you find that comparable?

Has Qantas ever offered service from the U.S. to anywhere but Australia and New Zealand? I can't recall them ever flying to Asia from here. One World has JAL and Cathay for that, and to a much lesser extent Malaysia Air (haven't flown them yet). I've never had a problem finding award tickets in that direction.

Speaking of Qantas, they offer Australia service from Honolulu. Didn't UA offer that back in the 90s? I know JAL has a heavy presence there as I've used them to Osaka.

Was this before the joint venture was put into place?

I definitely find it sufficient.

No, they haven't. But you used them as an example to Australia & Asia. I was pointing out that it wasn't so useful for one of those.

So, how many destinations in Asia is that non-stop from the USA on OW? Versus just United, much less SQ, TG, NH, OZ and CA? It is going to be very, very hard to win the "network" argument going up against United and Star Alliance.