raehl311

What do you mean really? Seems like completely obviously true to me.

Remember, March/April 2012 was the cut-over where everything was DISASTER, so kinda hard NOT to improve from there.

Always Flyin

Wow. Only lost your luggage once. What a great record.

Your abbreviated analysis does not properly analyze operations at UA.

Why is it that you find it necessary to only fly on only one carrier? I fly who is best for me on a given route and choose based on that route. I do not take a default UA centric view as I did in the past. The foreign competition is generally so much better than UA, I can't imagine why you would fly UA, particularly internationally--regardless of the class of service, and particularly in economy.

UA's on-time record is not particularly good. In-flight service is minimal, at best. The United Clubs are poor quality, over-stuffed with credit card holders, and offer few amenities (e.g., almost no food, default liquor that is generally atrocious, and paid liquor that is ridiculously expensive--even for an airport).

The prices on United are, generally, higher than the competition.

And United continues to decline--not improve.

LarkSFO

He traveled on 82 flights, did his research, and concluded that UA is best for him.

We get it - UA is not the right airline for you.

But, you don't have to be condescending / insulting to those who continue to choose UA.

bseller

You know the bolded portion, above, HOW??

Dave

mre5765

Until the snow season ends, I will be taking UA west bound from COS. Unless AA adds COS/LAX. Come spring, I will drive to DEN sometimes.

However I did fly enough AA/BA last year to get AA-Gold for 2014; looks good on the side panel. And I expect in 2014 it will be enough for EXP.

I am just not going to worry about PQDs; no point with the hideous deval. When I get deals in the mail like 100K membership rewards for $10K of spend, why care any more?

I am sure I will be flying UA and *A in future, but most of those miles will be awards.

LarkSFO

I take people's statements at face value, generally.

raehl311

I did just remember that DL Diamonds get free SkyClub access, which would save me another $250/year (since I'd still be in $150 on the credit card annual fee)

LarkSFO

My apologies...

As a DEN based flyer, it seems inevitable that you will still end up on UA a fair amount of the time (unless you lower yourself to Frontier! ).

FiveMileFinal

First of all, I don't see how anybody can be proud to fly United Airlines after what has happened in the past 2 years. As much as they have cut, as poorly as they have treated their biggest sources of revenue, and for such little benefit, it's amazing to me that anybody would want to be associated with the airline in any way.

Like I said before, I think all this 'decision making process' consists of is "can I get there in 0 or 1 stops." That's fine, but call it that instead of making up all this nonsense about 'doing research'.

United thrives on people like this. They count on laziness and apathy to remain in business. Wall Street loves it because all the cuts mean more money for Wall Street. And now with consolidation, United doesn't feel like they have to do any work at all, because who the hell else are you gonna fly?

Well, my answer now is "not you." The network only means so much. Cheap flights only mean so much. If the experience is horrible from beginning to end, what's the point in saving a few dollars? I'm cost conscious like most people here, but there comes a point where you're getting exactly what you pay for. And when you pay nothing, you get nothing.

This airline is transforming into Spirit in front of our very eyes and people seem to be unfazed by it.

What kills me is that a lot of these same people come on here and whine and moan about how badly the airline treats them, and yet they continue flying them. Well, what in the holy hell do you expect?

I just shake my head - not only at myself for staying as long as I did, but in disbelief at how much full-on, straight up abuse fliers will take just to avoid a connection. Or to get the lowest fare.

It's literally like the wife that takes beatings daily and blames herself for it. It's like the child that gets things taken away from it only for being a nuisance, and keeps coming back for more.

Shameful.

LordTentacle

I fly exclusivly on the route that has the worst ontime performance in the network based on total number of displaced seats (ex SYD)

I've still not had a single "bad" experience in the last 2 years
I'll even upgrade that... the worst thing that has happened to me in the last 2 years was that on one flight from SFO->FRA when I had an entire row to myself on a 777.... My dinner in Y was served cold

Until UA actualy treats me badly... I'm going to stay flying them

LaserSailor

I've been happy on both UA and DL in 2013.

Seek validation of your decision to stay or leave from yourself, not in pointless internet rants of what you see or don't see. You will find the ones who are staying won't seek it here, because it's the shrinks office for UA flyers.

Daichovo

I will definitely be leaving UA, but not until the end of 2014, and have mixed feelings about it. To be honest, I've had pretty good experiences on UA flights. This is my first program I've had status on, and for me, an insanely budget traveller, upgrades aren't important to me, but maxing out mileage is. The main benefit for me has been the extra miles earned. I admit having lounge access has been a really nice perk in the last 2 months since I've had it. I never check bags, so that's not important to me. I have been upgraded to business 3 times when I was silver this year (LAX-SFO, LAX<->MEX) and those experiences were okay, but I don't need them.

All this being said, because for a variety of reasons I can't qualify for a credit card in the US, I will no longer have the opportunity to have decent status. I'm not sure I will even spend $2500 on UA flights this year (unless somehow I get a ton of volunteering opportunities, but those have been REALLY limited lately in my experience). I won't have the CC so can't do that route. There's no way I'm going to spend $5000 just to get *G for the lounge access. I will have 50,000 miles flown easily (probably by summer, the way it's looking), probably with a decent chance for platinum if it weren't for those pesky PQD's. I feel like it's very clear that they don't value my business as a budget, albeit frequent, traveller.

I think the final straw for me is coming now that I am looking to book my last [saver economy] award tickets before Feb 1. I looked a couple weeks ago and had a great itinerary lined up, thanks in large part to Turkish, my favorite airline (and lounge in Istanbul, OMG!). Now ALL of that inventory has been pulled for the summer. I looked and there are only 3 days available to fly in the couple weeks leading up when I need to fly, and none +/- FIVE days either side of the date I need. LAX-IST, are you serious? The ONLY flights out of LAX at any time seem to be on Air Canada, which is consistent with some searching I was doing for a colleague's business ticket (only stuff available to get out of the US Europe-bound was on AC). Granted, AC also has a nice economy product, but seriously? There is almost no availability for domestic flights next summer, at least out of LAX (searching for friends/colleagues). If I can't use the miles, then what's the point?


I will be moving from my current city/airport of LAX somewhere new in Spring 2015. I don't know where yet, but PDX and SFO are the 2 most likely options. Both with a lot of UA flights, yes.

I really like *A and swore years ago after some awful experiences that I would never fly AA again. So most likely I will switch to another *A carrier, maybe Aegean to get easy *G for easy lounge access at least. Or maybe even a program like Alaska if it ends up making sense. I'll be hitting the real world at that time too so likely won't have as much time to travel and use a bajillion miles anyway. I still need to do more research on which *A carriers you can get decent economy redeems on, for places I'd actually want to go to.

JohnMacWW

I must fly different flights than this poster or I must have confused some other forum to be about UA because my experience has not been "horrible" once on UA. In the late 1990's I quit flying them during that ugly labor strife they had because of several bad experiences with unhappy flight attendants but even then the experience was not horrible, let alone from beginning to end.
Sure, things are not always perfect, but the level of failures or mistakes lately has not seemed unusual or severely different than any other airline.

I think that many posters are mad at United for business decisions and I think I understand that anger and am sympathetic. But I do not share that anger and thus I do no take that anger and aggression with me into the "friendly skies". That must be the difference between my description of flying United as being mostly nice and the poster's decription of it being "horrible from beginning to end". We choose our reactions to stimuli (or at least we are capable of choosing it) and our emotional state often has a big influence on that.

To use similar analogy as the poster did, this is like a child that is so angry at having a toy taken away that he cries and thows fits about anything else that is not picture perfect. Temper tantrums.

I do get the point the poster makes a point (albeit a bit violently) about beaten wives exemplifying people who are angry at United but keep flying it. But I chuckled at that too because the poster seems to be making his or her own life worse by reveling in his anger at United instead of simply walking away. If I was quitting United I would unsubsribe from UA forums and threads and shift my focus on my new airline(s). To do otherwise is to act like a child who has to leave the sandbox and angrily wants to ruin everyone else's experience as well.

I will keep flying UA as my preferred carrier in 2014. No issues and no concerns. I will have a great year and that will include great travel experiences.

unavaca

PMUA has been at the bottom of these surveys for years. No news there.

LarkSFO

[Conforming Moderator edit re quoted post and reply.]

As a former GS elite on United, I would love to hear your feedback.

Please use this template:

1) What did you like most about fkaUA?

2) What changes have had the greatest negative impact on you?

3) What remains about the current UA that makes it hard for you to leave?

4) What airlines are you considering switching to? Or kayaking?

5) What benefits / improvements do you expect on your new airline?

6) What aspects of the new airline make it hard for you to switch to them?