Although - at least with Southwest (during normal operations), one knows what to expect and one is not often disappointed/surprised (relative to expectations). The gap between expectations and reality provides more opportunities for the legacies to disappoint.

What about the United Club vs Admirals Club - it looks like the food offerings are a bit more substantial at the UC?

I would rate ACs ahead of UCs. You can barely get any real food these days from UCs, and the zoo-like environment is a turn off for me.

I have been flying AA quite a bit lately (about 1/3 of my 89 flights so far this year), and I am liking AA more and more. You can see a lot of its employees and contractors take pride in what they do, and treat passengers like humans (vs. United only if you have VIP status). Yesterday I was onboard an AA flight, and the lead GA gave a moving speech about service members, including those on board.

It really varies by station. AA has in general been much better about reopening clubs, while UA has been focused on keeping costs down by only opening clubs at stations where there is significant clubmember traffic. AA has also been much quicker to announce reopening of its premium (Flagship) lounges.

Yeah, except with WN these days what you should expect is a completely full flight, a flight delay, and possibly a cancel.

Generally agree with all the recent comments, especially about UAs more reliable operation as well as far superior IT.

That said, I've also had many pleasant AA flights this year, and my upgrade percentage is still a lot higher on AA (probably not unexpected out of SFO).

I'll echo the comment about AA offering good redemption value though. They often offer sub-25k one-way domestic awards in F, while UA wants >25k for SFO-LAX/PHX???

This brings up a question every frequent flyer has to answer for themselves: What award travel is important to me?

Several years ago I ran into some guys in a UC participating in one of those Mega DO junkets. In chatting with one, he told me to not spend any miles on a domestic ticket… you can always find cheap ones to buy if you dig just a little. Instead, he said save your miles for where they really count: INTL J. It’s been commented *A has more to offer in that regard (historically) than OW but everyone has to examine that against their own needs and wants.

As a life member of both the United Club and the Admirals Club since the early 2000s, who currently seldom travels, I appreciate this insight.

Ran into a lot of really expensive (domestic) fares the past few weeks; dug a little meant multiple connections, but still priced really high when the entire plane is more or less sold out to every last seat. Delta has the best domestic award options (and they would earn toward elite status); I also redeemed a bunch through AA web specials. UA, meanwhile, was charging as much as 5-10 times more, and in parallel with its cash fares.

UA award options suck bigly after it has moved to dynamic.

If I see an award with good value relative to its cash fare, I'll grab it, regardless of the carrier. Miles devalue over time, and I am not hoarding them just waiting for INTL J saver space.

Yup. We used to make fun of SkyPesos. Now UA miles are the sad joke.

I recently made the switch from AA to UA, mostly influenced by the whole UnitedNext initiative they got going on. As a former AA PlatPro, its quite sad to see the state the airline was in, having experienced multiple times in which non revs would push me off the upgrade list, the service cutbacks, and overall, the Oasis experience. Of course its harder for me living in Miami to fly united anywhere convenient, but the IAH/ORD layovers make it so much more worth it.

Interesting. I haven't been on a premium transcon since the start of the year (one of the flights my upgrade didn't clear, lol). I've been flying mainly midcons and have had good success. Plus, my DFW-Hawaii flights this year cleared, which was important to me.

Yea it feels like covid for AA employees is a one of those money machines full of rouge employee actions and Parker can't really stop it, or doesn't really care.

Perhaps some other rogue employees will make it up to you. 🙂

Just don't expect to catch CPUs on UA for hub-to-hub routes. They are non-existent. Even using PlusPoints on transcon routes is impossible. I imagine that the same is true at AA, so likely no difference between them in that regard. Sometimes, I think those leaving other carriers believe that they will be treated better as a 1K on UA than as a ExecPlat or Diamond Medallion. This is not the case.

While UA intl J award availability is not always there, you can often find seats on partners and that way experience airlines you would not normally take. That is one aspect of the Star Alliance I really appreciate.

Agreed. DL was really bad with premium award inventory pre-pandemic but during the pandemic UA has been giving DL a run for their money. Hopefully we will see soon how things shake out post-pandemic. Either program can be useful if you are flexible in your travel dates. But if not, hard to find any decent redemptions in classes above Y. On UA from this month on availability is loosening up a bit.

UA had cut their schedule back too far. Schedules for the fall look better, let's hope they stick.

Oh no even better, I underestimated how elite heavy Miami is for United. Upgrade lists are usually 10-30 people, with a few of my 1K friends even agreeing that receiving an upgrade is almost nonexistent... but hey, I don't blame them for avoiding american haha.

Haha yeah, United's program is def not my favorite, but I'd rather deal with that than the "500 mile upgrades", or even the very often case of AA gate agents skipping the upgrade list to upgrade non revs into first class, let alone... Oasis...

If you are DFW based EXP upgrade % for me YTD is 24%

Bingo

Upgrade potential: DEN vs IAH
 

Researching switching my flying to UA and wondering if anyone sees a difference in upgrades between DEN and IAH. I live in a smaller city (ABQ) and would be primarily connecting through those two.

Also, does anyone notice any differences between the two cities with time of day, day of week, or inbound/outbound? For example, does IAH tend to have more commuter traffic and therefore fewer upgrades during rush hour?

DFW (AA) vs IAH (UA): Upgrades
 

Looking at switching status pursuit and UA/AA are my main two options out of my home airport (ABQ). Wondering if anyone out there happens to have recent experience (or heard of anything on this forum) about upgrade potential with equivalent elite status when connecting through DFW on American vs IAH on United. Also, if there are any intermediary variables (eg rush hour in DFW is much lower odds than IAH but midday is much better).

Thanks folks

Both airports are seeing larger volumes of passengers vs. other hubs in United's network. From a time of day perspective, busyness will be driven by which banks of flights you are seeking to connect into from ABQ and to where.

From someone who connects through the two, DEN's terminal system has worked better for me as a connector historically since UA's flights were principally out of Terminal/Concourse B but that is changing with flights out of A. IAH can be a pain to navigate given the sheer number of terminals and where they put big planes vs. smaller UX planes so my longest runs between terminals and connections have been at IAH.

Additionally right now, from a club perspective DEN has only one UC for the next 12 months. IAH has multiple UCs that are finally reopening.

I would say upgrades are driven by when you fly and the sizes of aircraft as well as which cities you fly to. If you decide to go toe-to-toe with other UA elites during the AM and PM flight banks, you're going to have challenges.

David

These two airports are captive of their respective airlines and drive traffic and costs accordingly. I'd say this is 6 of one and half-dozen of another.

David

I flew FRA-SFO on Oct 24th and few days before the flight it was 45/60 booked and I was 20th in the upgrade list (as a 1K with the cheapest booked fare). Something must have happened but 10 more people behind me in the list (everyone) ended up upgraded and I believe there were even couple of seats empty both in Polaris and Premium Economy Plus.

I was booking the flight in the middle of september and I never seen any PZ space on any of the trans-atlantic flights.

I'm taking a guess - but I suspect you would be competing with more AA flyers out of ABQ than UA flyers. DFW is the second highest destination out of ABQ while IAH does not even make the top 10.

One of the biggest difference between UA and AA's program is that only CK, EXP, and PPro have unlimited free upgrades - all other elites need to use stickers to upgrade.

Did you also clear? How many cleared in the end? The 45/60 count might have included blocked inventory if Economy was oversold.

Aside: 20th as 1K even on a cheap fare is kind of surprising.

Oh fascinating. I guess United is just routing all their traffic through Denver. Where did you get that info? Would love to check it out.

Thanks - I think I’d make PPro so should be good.

This was my initial guess.

Thanks David - sounds like Denver is the clear winner.

Thanks. So, interestingly I looked at flight connections and they list DFW as 3rd (199 flights) and IAH as 5th (153). Phoenix, LA, and Denver are the others in the top 5, but are all served by multiple airlines, so those are skewed.

It does look like American has more flights to DFW than UA does to IAH, but this doesn’t say anything about load. For example, if the United flights were always full, but AA flights were at 85% capacity, that would theoretically be more advantageous for upgrades. Also, more flights midday from American may mean more flights where there are fewer business class folks.

In other words, none on one, none on the other.

Touché!

David