Moving to CVG, switch to DL?
 

Hey folks, thought I'd ask for advice from people here.

I'm currently SYR based and am Gold on UA. I will make Plat on UA by the end of August. I start a new job in Cincinnati in September and my SO will be in Birmingham. The bulk of my travel will be CVG-BHM and connecting through ATL on Delta makes the most sense. In addition, their focus city has quite a few destinations compared to UA. That being said, the rest of my travel largely will be to California (primarily SBP, SBA, BFL and SMF).

My options are to try to stick with UA (only option to BHM is through ORD) or status match to DL (don't think I'd be able to maintain plat with that challenge, but perhaps silver or gold) and split my flying between UA or DL. Man, I wish UA had better options to the south.

You need to have more detail. How much do you fly? Where do you fly? Are non stops important? Do you have status? Is there corporate reasons to switch or stay?

I accidentally submitted the thread without completing my post, whoops. Now it is fleshed out. Thanks for any advice!

I lived in CVG about a decade ago and stuck with UA due to lifetime status considerations. Basically just meant that I did a lot of CVG <> ORD <> YYY or CVG <> IAD <> YYY trips. Depending on where you live in the Cincy area, DAY is also a legitimate option for flights if times/connections happen to work better. The worst part of that sticking with UA experience was the old terminal that UA went out of (really more of a hallway). They have now taken over part of the DL terminal after DL moved a lot of volume away from CVG which materially improves the travel experience (especially during irrops).

But as most will note, this depends on a lot on your travel patterns and what matters to you most. I will say that if I had not have the lifetime stuff to think about with UA (and knew that my time at CVG was likely to be a max of a 2 years) I probably would have moved over to DL.

Currently at 443k, would like to make MM eventually.

I think you have two major considerations here:

- If you are primarily a 50k flyer, then UA E+ at booking is going to be much, much better than DL C+ at T-72. This only holds if your status is in the 50-75k range.
- How much are you flying to your California destinations? Getting to SBP on Delta metal is basically impossible unless you like a long drive from either SF or LA; neither is there any DL service to BFL.

Generally I would recommend going with the carrier that has the best schedule for you, but if the balance is "back-connecting in ORD to get to BHM" versus "I can't fly to SBP or BFL", I think UA might be the winner here.

DL will only match challenge to your current status level on another airline. Even if you happen to hit the Plat level challenge requirements on DL, they will only match you to Gold as that is your UA status level.

I'm still with United only because the network works for me best out of where I am. If you're in CVG and the destination(s) are for the long-term, I'd switch. If being in CVG is "temporary", then staying with UA might marginally be worth the hassle..

I'll likely be in the 50-75K range for next year. This year is a bit of an anomaly where I'll likely get close to 100k, but won't have PQD for 1K

My flying to BHM will be likely 1-2x per month. I'll likely fly to one of those California destinations once every 2 months. Then I have things like an MCO December trip where DL has nonstop and UA would require a connection along with a pending PHL trip.

With respect to BHM, a concern I have is that my trips will generally be Friday evening to Sunday evening. UA schedules to ORD require a 5 or 6 PM departure many months. And, I fear ATC delays can cause issues with misconnects. DL, on the other hand, has way more frequency to BHM from ATL, so a misconnect does not require an overnight and driving from ATL is also an option.

My current inclination is to at least try to stick with UA initially. I may only be CVG based for the next 2 years.

I'll be plat on UA by the end of August. I'd only initiate the match after that point.

The quick study says the UA CVG-ORD-BHM flights are about 4.5 hours travel time. DL CVG-ATL-BHM clock in at 3.25 (for the 2 early am flights) but mostly about 3.5 to 4.0 of travel time....

I might give you a different answer if there was direct BHM... but since you are connecting anyway, I'd personally stick with UA.

Side note, I was usually (80%+) upgraded ORD-CVG (and v.v.) as a UA Gold, and 100% as a 1K

In spite of the fact that I currently prefer DL to UA, I would stick with UA if I were in the OP's shoes because being able to fly right to those secondary airports in CA is a godsend.

For the BHM flights, I'd probably select based on price/schedule, and I'd also encourage the SO to visit me ~50% of the time.

It definitely depends on your desires from having status and what the relative tradeoffs will be. A four-hour connecting solution to go 396 miles is going to be absolutely brutal to do twice-monthly on either airline (I would almost consider driving although that seems a lot harder than the SF-LA trip), but I would tend to agree with jhayes_1780 that a connection is a connection which doesn't make DL that much better. Some days you're going to misconnect and you're going to have to live with that.

But if you pick DL for the schedule to BHM, how are you going to get to SBP? How will that impact your status overall? Does it make sense to split your business by price and schedule even if it doesn't get you a 50k tier (which would be a real hit)? It's definitely worth considering how you feel about all those options.

DL is a far superior airline. You'd be a fool not to switch given this opportunity