spin88

United and American are the twiddle dee and twiddle dumber of the airlines. They are run by two folks who were the management team at American West, both aspire to be like Wal Mart. AA has gone down hill steadily, UA was already there. Some of the AA airbus planes (the A321/320/319s) are semi-comfortable, because they have wider seats than the Boeing planes and have in seat IFE, but other than that neither are great.

As others have said, pack some snacks for the kids, charge their iPads, and have a movie set up on the iPad or some games, or download the UA app. Just be prepared that the steaming is not always totally reliable, so have a back up plan, and enjoy your trip to SF.

hotturnip

I just flew ATL-SFO on UA. We had seatback screens, but you had to buy the DirectTV or movies. The "free" wifi entertainment was, in a word, awful. A few obscure documentaries, and maybe a few kiddie things. I didn't get DirectTV free on my flight). And I didn't need to download the app. I just logged in from my web browser as per the instructions in the in-flight magazine.

Downloading videos ahead of time is a much better bet.

Often1

As a matter of simplicity and efficiency:

1. Download content. That way you & kids choose what you watch. Also, if there is a delay, they can watch at the gate or wherever you are stuck.
2. Food. Either let everyone pick what they want at the airport or carry it from home. Same deal, if there is a delay, they can eat on the ground.

Wifi entertainment is free, but internet access is relatively expensive and the bandwidth is not likely to be there to stream anything.

eng3

If you are just worried about earning miles, you technically have a year after your flight to request mileage credit. Though it is easier to just have the numbers attached to your reservation.

As for entertainment, the most risk-free approach is to make sure your kids have something to do for the duration of the flight (pre-downloaded movies on tablet, games, read a book, sleep, etc). You get free in-flight streaming content but there is no guarantee it will work properly. Even less so with paid WIFI internet.

Same for food, the most risk-free appach is to bring your own food or eat before the flight. They give you a tiny package of mini-pretzels (or small cookies-wafers in the morning) and you can buy snacks on board but there is no guarantee the catering hasn't screwed up and not loaded the flight properly or that you'll even find anything on the menu to your liking.

Overall, don't worry about it too much, it's a fairly short flight.