I started flying in 2008 when I moved from MSP to SEA. Switched from Delta to UA. Main reason was comfort. I fly TPAC 3-4 times per year and need E+.

I pay my own way, so upgrades are infrequent.

I focused on taking itineraries that flew 777 as they have wider more comfortable seats.

Considering moving back to Delta as UA is making it very expensive to do SEA-NRT-PVG e.g., forcing me through SFO/LAX where 747 or 787 coach seats are painfully narrow.

Happy? No. Choices? Ambivalent.

Here's an example: Flew MSP-SFO yesterday. Upgrade cleared at T-48. If it hadn't, I was confirmed in 7A on a 320, almost certainly the best Y seat in UA's fleet. TSA Pre, so I was through security in less than a minute. Boarded on time. Pre-departure beverage offered with a smile. FA was awesome throughout. Food was totally okay. Arrived SFO 40 minutes early. With the early arrival, there was a plane still in our gate, but UA quickly found us another one. This was a $423 RT S fare. When everything works like this, 1K seems a very good deal indeed.

I've been flying United since the 1970s, but I'm choosing them less and less. UA has basically left the Pacific NW for all intents and purposes, it's a shell of its former self up here.

Even on routes where UA has stayed, I've noticed a great lack of schedule integrity. Depending upon the day of the week and phase of the moon, the next time you go to book a flight the times and equipment have all changed, even seeing RJs from the coast to Denver (!!).

When I was flying UA a lot, I had a favorite flight or two. Try to find that today. A flight that's consistently at the same time on the same kind of plane, where you bred familiarity with your favorite seat on a schedule you could build your day around without thinking "what time is my flight this time?" The notion of a daily flight seems to have gone out the window.

That's why you'll find me on Alaska or one of its partners more and more. Alaska has been building the familiarity with me that I used to have with United, but United decided to drop.


I understand your being irked at UA selling access to a service you see as resulting in gunking up the works of a perk you feel you've earned to make your life easier, but I don't understand why it's unsettling that someone bought an upgrade for $100.

When one pays $1,200 for their ticket it's to guarantee a seat up front. When someone pays $100 on top of the Coach fare, it's an opportunistic buy to fill up what's basically remainder merchandise. Sometimes it's available, sometimes it's not.

You could choose to pay deeply discounted Coach too, then wait for the occasional $100 offer to come along, but that's not what you want. The ticket price to guarantee a seat up front, what you do want, is $1,200, not Coach + $100.

I submit that when "everything works like 'this", gold and plat are ALSO a good deal.

Dave

No question. Just farther down the upgrade queue. But ability to confirm those great seats in E+ at booking is a huge bonus for all, as is consistent access to TSA Pre. Really easy to take those things for granted when you fly frequently.

When is it going to be something we like??
 

I stay with UA for the pure joy of experiencing EWR. Nothing better in life than going through New Jersey.

Was an AA flyer
 

I used to fly American most if the time since I was based out of IAD and often traveled to central Texas. I switched to United because I found myself in the back of an MD-80 way too often. You are stuck back there in this dark space in between two jet engines that are right up against you head.

American has mostly switched from those aircraft. Although AA has a much smaller presence at IAD, they have moved to the newer (cleaner, well-lit) terminal at IAD.

When I last spoke with AA, they said they'd match my status. If United isn't going to clean up Terminals C and D at IAD, maybe it's time for change?

For years, maybe an entire decade, UA and other airlines were struggling to survive. They had no choice but to throw anything they could our way and hope we'd stay. They were really in fear of us leaving. The downward spiral likely created cash-flow thinking (at the airlines) as well, which is severely detrimental to long-term health but offers great opportunities for the customer.

They did not have a sustainable business model.

They do now.

We can (and I do) complain about the interiors of some planes in Y... but they've made substantial investments in a better international product in C. The planes are obviously maintained better, as I rarely have significant delays anymore. And they fly where I need to fly.

But they're not tossing out CPUs and e-certs like candy anymore. As a Plat I'm getting far fewer upgrades than I used to as Gold. Far fewer. But for me, I'm not buying a ticket with any expectation of being upgraded. I got over the frustration of ending up #1 or #3 on the list of those who didn't make it long ago. If UA found someone willing to pay $250 for that upgrade, so be it.

Oil at $100/barrel and UA (and others) have found a way to keep their planes in the air and fly when and where I want to go. Who knew.

That's about right. I'd add that elite perks are no worse than on any other airline, so if you're going to be loyal to one, it might as well be UA as any other that fits your needs. I guess that's called "inertia".

Not to mention that, adjusted for inflation, prices are still very reasonable despite the high fuel costs. As much as we all like to grumble about how many privileges UA frequent fliers have lost, I have to agree that this is pretty impressive (even if not exactly unique to UA).

I have been flying UA regularly since 1994. (First trip on UA was way back in 1977. DTW-DCA on a 727; return on a 737.) I chose to give my business regularly to UA because at the time I lived in Washington, DC and UA was a significant presence at IAD. Most of my business travel at that time was to ORD or LAX, so I had options from DCA and BWI as well. Prior to 1994, I flew primarily to visit family and friends in DTW, MKE and MSP, so I was a regular NW customer.

Now I live in the Bay Area, so UA continues to be a good choice for me. I travel to LA nearly every week, and frequently to ORD, EWR, JFK and IAD. I also make occasional trips to Asia and Europe either on UA or a *A partner.

I have no plans at this time to change my travel habits or where I spend my travel dollars. While there have been customer service and public relations failures issues since the merger, most of my flights have been on time, upgraded and uneventful. Sure, I get angry from time-to-time because of a rude CSR, surly FA or random equipment change, but more often than not UA gets me where I need to be safely and on my schedule. Of course, having 1K status helps. I appreciate priority boarding, E+ seating, the upgrades and the ability to make same day changes to my travel plans.

I'm not nearly as experienced as the majority here. I have only been flying frequently since January with a new job. I fly weekly and I'm based out of CLE so with United being a hub (at least for the time being) it presents the greatest options for me. I also have the United MileagePlus card with access to the United Club and it has made my traveling life easier. I also just made it to UA Gold and was upgraded for the first time. I really have nothing to complain about with UA.

This thought resonates with me. I know how you feel.

Well I'll play.

I fly somewhere on the order of 110k to 125k a year for work. I probably add another 20k or so for various personal travel to that in the average year.

I started traveling heavily in about 2007 though I had been, occasionally, a low level elite on either CO or UA in the decade prior depending on what a particular year brought.

Technically my new home airport (MLB) would make me a DL flyer. The only other service there is US CRJ-200s to CLT and they could be perfect in every other way and I still wouldn't do 1.5 hours each way week in and week out on those sardine cans.

So I fly from MCO where I could pick basically any airline.

I stick with UA because:
Their redemption policies, routing rules, and alliance make it easy to redeem the miles I earn for work flying for good vacation trips. I see this as a major compensation for being away from home three weeks out of the month. Other carriers are inferior on this count.

I can generally avoid regional jets flying to DC (entirely) or to various west coast destinations (mostly). I do occasionally wind up on one into places like MCI, OKC, or STL, but those are only occasional destinations for me.

The new UA SDC policy is much better for me than AA or US (and until the recent change was better than DL.

I'm on the cusp of being MM and the prospect of being a 1K makes my wife very happy. This may be the biggest benefit of all as a happy wife is a better benefit than any other airline could possibly offer.

I have had both very good and very bad service both on the ground and in flight, including in premium cabins, on all of UA, AA, US, DL, B6, WN, and VX. The grass just isn't uniformly greener on any domestic carrier.

This is true too. The price for Jordan Cab in the club, even before the card discount, is ~1/5 retail in DC. And that pour is probably significantly more than 1/5 the bottle at most clubs.

Better maintained than when? UA's dispatch reliability has improved over last summer, but that was a major low point. Compared to pmUA, which led the industry on on-time performance, current operations are still unreliable.

Didn't one of UA's executives state that 80% OT was as good as they needed to perform, implying that anything better was a waste of money?

I've had significant delays (> 1 hour) on about half my UA flights this year. Fortunately, they have always been on the second leg of connections, or when there was no tight connection, so I haven't had to be at the mercy of SHARES rebooking. But eventually, my luck is going to run out and I'll be stranded at some hub airport and have to beg for a voucher.

I don't perceive that at all. I think there are a couple of factors here. First, people have focused more on what they have lost, than appreciating what has been gained.

I'm a 2 year 1K (1 year 1P before) after 6 years as an AA EXP.

On the loss column, as far as what I have perceived:

OT performance has declined.
Fewer RPUs (I don't find them that useful given my flying patterns).

On the gain side:

SDC waiver is huge for me.
EWR TPAC and TATL options.
No *net blocking.
Booze in the UC.

As an example, there is another thread running about a rumor that the UC is going to have worse free booze options. No one mentioned that it was the integration with CO that lead to better free booze options in the UC.

I'm based in Chicago and New York, so either UA or AA will work for me. Each has gaps in its network, so either will work for me about equally. I choose to fly UA and am quite happy with them as my priorities are:

1) Premium award redemption to exotic locations. For Asia on *A, I've flown F on NH, OZ and TG. LH F on the 747s is pretty impressive as well. Granted nothing wrong with CX and JL over in OW, just like the additional options in *A better. And never had a problem getting where I wanted to go in F on *A. Plus, last minute LH availability has given me options to move travel around when I have needed to.

2) Goes where I want to go conveniently. As mentioned, both AA and UA work for me.

3) A comfortable flying experience. Both work for me. AA was upgrade-o-rama, but UA's E+ is comfortable enough for me. I've had good GPU success on EWR-HKG/BKK flights, so that's going to compensate for fewer domestic upgrades. On the one EWR-HKG where I couldn't upgrade, E+ made the difference between a pleasant flight and torture.

Since I fly 125K-190K per annum, it makes sense for me to concentrate my flying where I perceive I get the most value. Right now, based on my priorities, I get a better deal with UA than AA. I'll keep flying them as long as I perceive this to be the case.

I think there is another factor at work here in perceptions on FT. FT encourages people to post negative experiences or complain about UA as separate threads (case in point, this thread). However if one starts a thread about something positive, it gets dumped into a consolidated thread. As such, there are a lot more threads with people complaining about UA. This creates somewhat of an echo chamber of negativity on the UA forum.

For flyers, loyalty programs should be about maximizing value out of the flying experience. Basically, I think everyone should go where they perceive they are getting the best value. If they don't perceive there is value out of concentrating their flying, they should kayak.