Just to clarify, what is "bashing" about stating facts?

My "facts" don't support any of the bashing.

Great. And I'm very happy for you.

Anecdotal evidence does not equal facts.

I had about a 60% CPU success rate last year as a Plat. There are 1K's that have a CPU rate under 10%.

Both are anecdotal evidence, but to be presented to another pax as "fact" and "this is how your experience will be" is misleading. There are a multitude of variables that impact a flyer's experience with any airline.

As I said, if the OP's anecdotal evidence has been good enough for him/her to continue to shift more business to UA, your anecdotal evidence (and mine as well) is irrelevant.

I didn't, and I never have, these are MY facts and my facts alone. Baze has never had a problem on UA, and that is fantastic for him, god bless him I wish I could say the same. Reality is what I experience is part of the empirical evidence provided by the DOT in terms of complaints for missing baggage and late and canceled flights reports filed. So, I disagree, because an amalgamation of anecdotal evidence can and does become empirical evidence.

Very well put. ^

Whatever you'd like to call it, it's still irrelevant as it relates to the OP's decision making process of choosing an airline that works for him or her.

OP has clearly traveled enough UA to form their own empirical observations of what he/she should expect to experience. So my experiences and your experiences are merely white noise in that context.

That being said, I suppose it's not worth arguing since you're entitled to write whatever you'd like in an internet forum within the TOS. Enjoy the remainder of your weekend.

ETA: The attached report flies in the face of what you've stated as "fact" anyway. On time performance for November 2014 (sorry meant 2015) as well as trends in the months leading up to November show UA and clearly outperforming AA and outperfoming carriers like JetBlue and Virgin America. AA is on the way down, UA is clearly on the way up....which is exactly what the OP reported. https://www.transportation.gov/sites...anuaryATCR.pdf

At SFO they're terrible. Last few flights I've waited 30-50 minutes, with Priority tags.

They also damaged my bag back in December. I filed a claim, and they made me bring it back to the airport (despite having already looked at it after the initial damage) to determine whether they'd repair it or replace it. I left it with them at SFO for repair. Now they appear to have lost it, or at least that's my best guess. The last time I heard from them it was somehow in DEN, and the agent that called me from there still hasn't returned my calls despite leaving several voicemails for him.

Being lowly scum silvers we have decided to look more at the fares and real service when booking flights. Last year we did LAS to SFO to MEL via AKL and a return from AKL to LAS via LAX simply because ANZ offered a much much better Premium Economy product and a better price than UA was offering when we booked. The total airfare was somewhere around $7k for the two of us, UA got $150...and we still got a pile of UA miles. Today I booked our fall cruise air and UA wanted $4600 plus 80,000 miles for two of us to go EWR to AMS and then BCN back to EWR. I found a BA/AA trip on the same routing for $4100 total for two and no miles.. yes we have to connect but there is no way I can justify the added cost. Maybe if Oscar gets better and really does change some things I will get to use all of those miles in 2017 going to HKG.... The reality is with just 3 legacy carriers left there is little competition and little interest on the part of the airlines to provide any real service beyond getting us there at some point.

As UA does not have a Premium economy section it is impossible to compare the 2. Premium Economy is a separate class of service. UA's E+ is just regular economy with a bit more legroom. Same service as regular economy.

I agree that there is a sort of apples and oranges comparison but the reality for us was our last TATL flight with UA --EWR to AMS last May, the E+ seats were miserable the food was unidentifible as well as inedible and the plane was filthy half way across. We gave a lot of thought to taking the then new route LAX to MEL on the 787 but the price was almost as high as what we paid for ANZ and at 3 months out I had to book and they would not allow any MUAs at that point. We still do most of our LAS-EWR trips on UA and continue to remain unimpressed despite paying for F on many of those trips when the fares are cheaper. We have EWR-SFO-YYV and ANC-SFO-LAS this summer all in F so that will pretty much be it for UA and us unless we see some major improvements.

To the Original question
 

Just my experience (clearly others have not had it so good):

I just started flying frequently early to mid last year and have done so almost exclusively on UA, so i can't speak to much about other (with one exception). I have done roughly 8 international flights with UA, have never lost a bag. I was delayed a full day trying to come back home from SYD once (weather related, and eventually crew time expired), while certainly wasn't thrilled guess I was not surprised when you choose any airline with limited number of flights out of a certain city. They paid for hotel/food and flight resumed 24 hours later. I was delayed another time out of my home airport (again weather related but at connection airport), no real other airline option at the late hour i was flying (STL has limited options), at connecting airport, missed connection (this was known before i flew) again given hotel and food vouchers. They eventually upgraded me to first class on a different airline to get me to my overseas destination.

Which brings me to my one exception. I have flown international first class on both the new AA route to SYD from LAX and the UA route from SFO to SYD, I actually preferred the UA flight for comfort, service and food. AA had them beat on the bathroom as there were two of them for 8 people (and one was actually huge (up by cockpit) AA also beat them on the ability to turn the seat into a desk (rotate seat to window and have a nice desk with an ocean view :)

Had a few other experiences with DL and AA out of NY, every time (4 round trip totaled) have been delayed (usually a few hours), but i chalk that up to Airport. I do have to say i actually made it back from SYD to STL flying UA one time before a college made it back from NY to STL flying DL. Obviously something went majorly wrong there, but thought it was funny.

I am dedicated to UA for next several flights to SYD, Wife kids to SYD, a few family domestics and eventually a mileage spent to HI. hope i continue to receive the great service

I'm pretty darn happy too. The only thing that has me jealous is I wish UA 1Ks had the same upgrade clearance as AA EXPs, but oh well. As for the FF programs themselves, they all seem to be going the same way anyway and I'm guessing AA will cut theirs to be on par with MP sooner than later in terms of earning capability.

Yes, those F seats on the older AA 777's are very cool

Since you added data later: It's November 2015 not 2014. And it's ONE month. Why criticize me for anecdotal data, and then provide a snap-shot of one month's performance to make your argument. "Clearly outperforming" AA, um "clearly" would be greater that 0.2 points. Where exactly was UA at this time in their merger process?