Neil35

Bolding is mine.

Your choice of words in this context is interesting. Are you accusing DL of doing something that UA itself has never done?

Or is it a practice at both UA and DL, only that you chose to highlight the DL part?

EmailKid

I thinks we're mostly in agreement here, though while I did no longhaul flying on CO in C (quite a bit in Y), my experience is that CO service was definitely better than sCO

Premerger best service with US based airlines: Alaska, CO, Southwest. US worst of those that I flew; never experienced jetBlue, Virgin or MidWest.

And going even further back, NW always treated me very well, especially when my u/g cleared.

But may have to rethink stratege to SE Asia, as I believe EVA PE may be the way to go if I cannot use GPUs and/or Ca$h and miles to move to Biz @:-)

exerda

Just curious, if BKK fares are so low, why for all the dates I'm trying, W fares to BKK are about $500 more than W to HKG on UA metal? I've personally never paid so much for BKK airfare as in the past 2-3 years. Paid C on a better carrier, like Emirates, is barely double that W fare on UA and the upgrade roulette.

I'm likely to actually book UA to HKG, visit a friend in HKG, and take TG or someone onward to BKK this time around--it will be cheaper.

Alpha Golf

The non-union airlines also use the seniority system.

Kacee

That's how I'm doing my next trip. CX HKG-BKK is about $600 in J. No need to play GPU roulette for the NRT-BKK leg on UA. Also gives me the chance to check out OneWorld.

Bonehead

But they're not, and that is a complete deal breaker for me. The PMUA J configuration is so bad that I book away from it (I was shocked at how jammed in those seats are when I first flew it, and I had a window seat!). I have had many very comfortable flights in PMCO J (including sleeping like a baby) on the 777, so I'd be very surprised if "nearly everyone" would prefer the PMUA seat. For the record, I'm 6'3" and broad-shouldered.

greg99

I think your post illustrates the futility of the PMCO/PMUA C seat debate.

I, too, am 6'3" and broad-shouldered (I wear a 46L jacket, for reference), and I wear size 13 shoes. I much prefer the PMUA seats to the PMCO seats, because I'm unable to extend the seats fully flat. My feet simply won't fit in there, plus I personally find it very narrow in the shoulder area.

I'm not saying you're wrong, nor that I'm right, except that we each have our own personal preferences which are entirely valid.

I think we should have a collective New Year's Resolution to stop debating the PMUA/PMCO C seat issue.

But YMMV...

Greg

5khours

So you're in the 48%. I too am 6'3" with wide shoulders and would always take PMUA over PMCO. So I'm in the 45%. If the only consideration was the seat itself, almost no one (yourself included) would pick PMCO. It's like asking whether you prefer a wider seat with more legroom or narrower seat with less legroom. It might be a good question for a (lack of) intelligence test, but it'
would be of zero interest as a thread topic.

That was the whole point of the poll... to demonstrate it was a matter of personal preference and put an end to the debates and to the assertions of opinion masquerading as facts.

787dreamer

NH changed the schedule of the NRT-CGK (Jakarta, Indonesia) market effective March 30, 2013 so that it makes a timely connection with UA's bank of arrivals in NRT. Currently NH departs NRT at 10:00 am which is well before the bank of UA flights arrive into NRT. After the schedule change, it will depart NRT at 17:40 going to CGK non-stop. Similar change the other way; NH will now depart in the morning arriving into NRT a couple of hours before the bank of UA flights depart for USA. Previously the CGK-NRT were departing late evening from CGK arriving about ten hours before the UA bank of flights depart for USA.

It's a very convenient change. I used to have to fly NRT-SIN and overnight at Changi until the next morning before the first available flights to CGK from SIN. The schedule changes cuts the USA-NRT-CGK total travel time by 8 hours.

The only negative consequence is that NH is switching from the 787 to the 767 for the new schedule. I once flew NH's 767 and the seats are horrible.

Boraxo

Not really gonna miss the 6:00am departure at BKK, which was most unpleasant. However it is going to make same-day returns a bit more challenging. I guess SQ and CX will be raking in premium customers.

+1 There is no reason anyone on the West Coast should have to stop en route to BKK.

The main problem with DL is not the international premium product (which has finally caught up and surpassed UA once lie-flat horizontal was rolled out) but worthless Skypesos. I have little difficult finding domestic saver awards and can often find international C. On DL - forgedaboutit.

UA product is admittedly subpar but tolerable - the bigger issue, as you note, is the poor profitability due to SMI/J mismangement.

A huge minus. TG's midhaul business class seats from PER-BKK were similarly awful and I would not choose that route again when SQ is an option.

IMO EK is awful - they lie about horizontal lie flat and good luck with irregular ops (not that UA is a shining star but they take decent care of 1Ks). LH will be a solid option once the horizontal lie-flat in C is completely rolled out by 2015.

Is this a UA connection or just EVA? Not interested really interest in E+

Actually I think it is the opposite. The UA experience is deteriorating for the HVF and UA will soon lose its edge when LH and AA complete installation of lie-flat horizontal seats. Now many of us HVF don't end up in Y international, but we often do for domestic flights. And that's where UA is really lacking - my friends on DL and AA are routinely upgraded (free). On UA it's now a rarity from a hub. If I was a domestic flyer I'd abandon UA in a New York minute.

It isn't rationalization - some of us are stuck due to corp contracts and hub flights. I am not going to take a connection when I can fly nonstop nor can I justify spending $2-3K more to fly BA TATL (or even $5-7K to fly SQ TPAC). Not to mention that I prefer the longer flights - the last thing I want is a crappy F seat to connect on East Coast, which in turn will leave me insufficient time to sleep on the TATL leg (and extend an already lengthy journey).

However I may start considering other alternatives - like TK and QF from LAX - though the UA operation at LAX makes SFO look like paradise (even more reason to depart via the new international terminal). And I will definitely switch to LH for TATL once the retrofit is complete. At some point you have to consider whether it makes sense to make a run at LH Senator status, as UA elite program continues to deteriorate and UA reliability goes to hell.

Always Flyin

I had ~175,000 DL miles I had been sitting on for years. When they announced the devaluation, I booked BKK-xNRT-oJFK; JFK-xNRT-oMNL in Saver C with no problem on the dates I wanted.

I keep hearing this about DL miles, but my experience was certainly different.

sbm12

Except that it is really far, there aren't many planes which can make it that far without refueling and the yields in the market are insufficient to make such flights profitable. But surely no other reasons, right??

SQ uses regional biz to PER, too. At least they did when I flew it in April. Also, it is a route shorter than a US transcon so arguably doesn't demand full premium service.

Boraxo

I have been sitting on 155k for years, but unfortunately need at least 2 tix, and DL doesn't do one-ways, yet another minus factor.

One would think there is sufficient premium O/D business but perhaps BKK is not the business center it used to be with the rise of other tigers? I was surprised to see that NRT was not really much off the flight path from BKK to SFO (per great circle mapper) and UA certainly has a nice bank of connections at NRT to feed both directions. Which begs the question - why couldn't they make this work? (Answer: see preceding posts )

bocastephen

All EVA

DL2SXM

unfortunately the DL platform for booking flights with miles lags way behind that of AA and UA. However, if you know how to be creative with the skymiles booking process, you can find low to mid tier seats in J.

However, all things aside, once you've flown on the UD of a DL 747, there is nothing else that comes close. You simply can't go back to anything else, at least something thats not direct aisle access. I had a chance to redeem 120,000 miles for a BE award seat on Virgin Australia, LAX to BNE, using my skymiles but threw it back due to VA not having direct aisle access seating in J.