samcmontreal

Hi

I'm currently a DL PM and UA PP. So far my experience has been better on DL.
Most of my travel is ex-Asia to North America.

Would you recommend I go for UA 1K or Delta diamond.

The main benefit I'm interested in is SDC and my experience so far with united has been less then stellar.

NH_Clark

Sounds like you answered your own question.

Flyer1M

^^^

mduell

SDC doesn't work very well TPAC, since most airport pairs are once a day.

samcmontreal

I like UA as they now started a 3x weekly service to HGH. I guess my question is also which airlines gives better (most generous) upgrade instruments for TPAC. Between 1K and DL DM. I still have a few flights to book this year and want to get the most bang for my buck.

sbm12

Sure, but it also won't really work on DL. And UA's policy on paper is more generous than DL's last I checked.

Where in Asia? That will likely matter given that both airlines are shifting their offerings on "home" metal lately. UA has a much stronger Asia network than DL overall, though if DL flies to your city that flexibility might not matter.

samcmontreal

Mainly PVG and/or now HGH.

Ocn Vw 1K

Here is a more comprehensive, five-year long thread comparing the programs; but it has only a few comments on SDCs; none more recent than a year ago.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...spectives.html

emcampbe

This really depends where you are and where you are going.

Most specific TPAC pairs are once a day, but there are often connecting options. If you want to get there same day, and know that early enough (or a flight delay/cancelation happens early enough), there are options from other hubs.

For example, if you're scheduled ORD-NRT, you could SDC to a morning flight to DEN/IAH/SFO/LAX and travel onward from there. In fact, doesn't SFO work that way for any TPAC destination that has a nonstop out of ORD? EWR/IAD as well, probably, though maybe tighter to get a proper connection. Obviously, that doesn't work so much for the once-a-days from west-coast only (though you may be able to do an LAX connection from SFO, or vice-versa, on cities that are served by both). The smaller Chinese destinations from SFO, obviously not, and TPE/MEL/SIN/AKL where there truly only is 1 flight a day to those destinations won't work, but many will. And obviously, there needs to be space available.

That's the real trick - SDC options are often slim picking these days, since flights are pretty much packed, so not a lot of seats to SDC (or even to do full changes into, last minute). I don't know that DL is going to help there - their aircraft are going to be full/close to it, most of the time also.

On the other hand, we are ending peak summer travel season now. So there may be a few more seats available for SDC, etc. in the fall. I was trying to SDC out of YYZ last weekend - was booked Monday, but things changed and I was trying to come home mid afternoon or later Sunday. There wasn't a single seat to be had on any flight ex-YYZ to ORD/IAD/EWR at all on Sunday.

Kacee

With current extremely light loads on HGH-SFO, you will be able to upgrade that flight using your six UA GPUs with ease. You get two more for every 50K Premier Qualifying Miles (PQM) flown past 100K.

SDC on the TPAC HGH-SFO will be impossible. If you're flying onward from SFO, it's a nice benefit.

transportprof

Since your username suggests a connection to Montreal, I'd suggest that there is quite a difference in the *A versus Skyteam when it comes to earning and burning miles in Canada.

United has Air Canada and Delta has no domestic partner. Makes a big difference if you ever need to fly back home on an award ticket, or want to earn miles for travel to smaller Canadian airports or between any two Canadian airports.

pnsnkr

The one time where I did SDC on an international itinerary, I was able to change a MUC-IAH-AUS UA metal flight to MUC-FCO-EWR-AUS with the MUC-FCO segment on LH.

Are such options possible on TPAC flights where the OP could get a feeder leg on CA connecting to UA metal from PEK, PVG, etc?

Tchiowa

To me it depends on what you're going to do with the miles and the status. If you have particular destinations that you're planning for then get status on the airline with the most convenient flights to there.

sbm12

That's not supposed to be valid on a TATL itinerary; you got lucky there. SDC is not supposed to involve switching to partner metal.
So DL is going to be partners and a double connection from HGH to nearly everywhere; PVG could be a single connection on DL metal. UA is much more likely to have you on UA metal throughout and with fewer connections.

televisor

When it comes to SDC: my understanding is that Delta only let you change on the same travel day. I've managed to do changes over a few days multiple times with UA (since they allow a 24 hour window), which is a huge benefit.

That said, not so useful for TPAC/TATL, but I've rarely not seen SDC options within North America.