relangford

To Darlox: AA begins flying ICN-DFW nonstop in May (I'm on one of the first flights). ICN has been the number one or number two rated airport in the world for many years and is a great facility, and you can connect to most Asian destinations. No, I don't work for ICN.

unavaca

Woohoo, OW finally has non-stop coverage to ICN from one city in all of North America

UA covers it from both ORD and SFO, plus *A coverage via SQ to SFO, OZ to ORD, HNL, LAX, JFK, SFO, SEA, and AC to YYZ and YVR. *A stomps OW to ICN, hands down; it's not even a competition.

relangford

I was just letting Darlox know that AA does have at least one way to get to Asia. You may note I'm also a 1k and Million Miler on UA.

UrbaneGent

In the 1990s didn't UA have something similar to this when one would hit 25K/50K/75K (or just 100K), respectively? We used to get bonus miles and i think regionals. If anyone out there remembers...?

fastair

UA does not fly a nonstop flight from ORD to Seoul. Yes, UA's extended route network to ICN via connections or partners blows AA out of the water, but UA does not fly ORD-ICN.

mherdeg

See discussion upthread at http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/20641244-post4.html. United's "elite choice" program was last offered in 2010.

FlyWorld

Responses come from ua at 5pm on Fridays only. All lies anyway.

chinatraderjmr

Before Elite Choice UA had even a better program back in the 90's. they had threshold bonuses on your way to 1K. I can't remember exactly what they were, something like 25K RDM's @ 25K, then 40K RDM's @ 50K. By the time we reached 1K we had an extra 100K RDM's every year

The ridiculous thing is UA throws millions if miles at credit card holders who are CHASE customers but absolutely nothing for their own customers. Sure, I can see Smiseks point that he is selling & we are buying safe, reliable transportation and we really don't need more then that. The problem is there has been nothing reliable about UA since the merger. As far as safe, ill keep those thoughts to myself but this is really insulting........and we deserve it. UA thinks they don't need to compete with AA to keep us & unfortunately, we are proving them right

YES - see my post above. It was before the ELITE CHOICE of the later 2000's. we got RDM's @ certain thresholds ( around 100K RDM's for flying 100K)

BlueEyedDevil

AA is going to earn themselves a new 1k next year.

burlax

Nothing ridiculous about that. Profit sharing with a bank on CC interest and fees bring LOTS of money and is much 'cleaner' and easier business than flying planes from point A to point B. . .

UA-NYC

They'd never do this, because we all know 1Ks are new UA's least favorite customers - too many benefits, not GS-level CPM

channa

We are?

They have lost a significant number of Elites, and their numbers show a loss of business.

While CO has often stumbled with many of their marketing moves, the fact that they put out targeted retention bonuses and invested resources in printing a big "1K" on boarding passes indicates they have some concern on this item.

Management may be working outside their comfort zone, and of course CO is often too PROUD to admit a fault or error, but in their sort of messed up CO mentality, you can tell they see there's a problem. They just don't fully understand how to fix it.

Thunderroad

While I certainly won't argue that AA is better than UA to Asia, the comparison is not as black and white as it might seem. For the five places to which AA does fly - PVG, PEK, NRT, HND and soon ICN - ugrades are not only from cheaper fares than UA offers but also are considerably easier to get. If you can afford to fly onward intra-Asia in J (especially since the AA Y ticket for TPAC is cheaper than UA), tolerate Y intra-Asia, or burn some points for that onward travel, you can piece together a decent itinerary.

Also, CX is a great partner airline, the best J seats around (which, along with US, were the template for AA's new J) and often has award seat availability, especially in its excellent F. Plus if you fly CX (or any OW partner for that matter) as an AA code share, you get full AA mileage accruals.

The recent addition of MH to OW adds another dimension and options.

It wouldn't surprise me if, along with all of the negatives that might well flow from the AA-US merger, Parker's team might push to open up new Asian destinations so the combined airline can be a true global brand. I don't know whether CX would object to making HKG an option in this regard since it might see AA as a competitor (though that doesn't stop many partner airlines from flying the same routes), but perhaps KUL since passengers could then connect on from there on MH?

chinatraderjmr

You FIX it the same way other companies do.......hire someone who knows what he's doing. I'm not talking about SMI/J or any Sr VP but if you see a problem & don't know how to fix it, hire someone that does

UnitedFFinAsia

True!