If mileage redemption opportunities are important to you, I have experienced drastically better availability on Star Alliance than I ever did when I flew AA. As far as upgrades are concerned, it all depends on when and where you're flying. I get upgraded about 25% of the time, and I'm only Silver.

PDB- the most ridiculous waste of time. Who cares. Bring a bottle of water.

I am AA Platinum and been flying AA/OneWorld for decades. Due to a relocation from Dallas area to Micronesia I am likely to switch allegiance to United/Star Alliance. What are the big changes I should expect? Service? Hard product? Soft product? Lounges? Might * match my status? etc.

Lots of potential ground to cover but it probably would be best to set some context.

Where will you be traveling to?
Micronesia a big area, are you referring to GUM or one of the small islands?
How much travel will you be doing?

UA will likely offer a status challenge for AA Plat to UA Gold. That would provide free E+ access, *A lounge access (UCs on international itins), free SDC, improved bag allowance, Boarding Group 1 (after GS, 1K, and other pre-boarders), ....
For more on the challenge, see https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...ssion-etc.html

For more on UA Gold benefits, see https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...r/default.aspx

Thank you WineCountry. I'll start from your links and read through this threads...should get me what I need.

I track my bags on the UA app on every flight. So this would be a wash in my mind.

New to United - help!
 

I'm PP with citi card Admirals Club access on AA and was trending to EP when my contract was changed. New client in new cities will necessitate mostly United. What should I expect with the airline? Best way to attain status quickly? lounges?
I'm looking at 4-6 segments weekly for the foreseeable future... mostly up and down the east coast US.
Not really wanting to start over after 115 segments in last 12 months on AA... ugh!
I appreciate your thoughts/guidance.

Welcome to UA Forum

Might help to narrow the question a bit.


Look into a MileagePlus Premier Status Match Challenge (Questions, Discussion, etc)

Domestic travel or internation?
Talking about segments suggest domestic, so you need a United Club membership. The cheapest way is[h4]Consolidated Chase MP Club credit card- Benefits, Q&A, ....{Annual fee inc Aug 2017} -- first year free

Everyone loves to hate their airline lounges but some general information can be found in https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...s-archive.html

In terms of lounges, Admirals Club have showers and none of the United Clubs have showers.

So I know the grass is not always greener on the other side, and every airline has it's issues, but I am an AA loyalist based out of ORD thinking about jumping on the United bandwagon. For starters, the status free match makes it really easy to start off with United silver. I typically have enough personal travel to hit the bottom two rungs of any airline loyalty program, and higher if I have business travel - but that looks out of reach for a while. I only picked AA over United originally because I had the AA credit card since college and honestly the free drinks in Y MCE which are gone and probably will never come back. I have like four AMEX cards with Airline Incidental re-imbursement - so I could just buy the drinks in UA Y using those credits. The last straw was seeing article after article about how UA cares about their domestic hard product unlike AA who just keeps taking out IFE.

So my question is - are there any former AA loyalists, and if so what are the differences you notice - bonus points for anyone out of ORD. Seems like I need to request the match by 9/3.

UA is a more functional airline right now - more reliable, much better app and IT overall. While it's not notable for outstanding service at the gate or inflight, IME you're more likely to experience truly unpleasant service on AA. UA also seems to attract a more professional, law-abiding customer base, at least here on the west coast. They also haven't torturized their domestic cabins to the same extent as AA, and as Gold or Silver, you'd likely be able to score an E+ seat on most if not all flights.

I was originally driven away from UA by their ridiculous PQP qualification scheme, and you might want to take a look at that to see how it squares with your travel patterns. Though who knows if they'll ever return fully to the published standards. Value of the frequent flyer miles is also low and dropping, if that's important to you.

I've had status of varying levels with both airlines, and in fact still do...Gold with UA and Executive Platinum with American. I find American to be way better for Executive Platinums than 1Ks with United. At the lower elite levels, I think it is somewhat of a wash, but you are indeed more likely to have an E+ seat on United than with AA given the relative size of each E+ section. I find UA to be a much better experience in Y than AA's miserable Oasis seats, too. Just realize as a Silver or Gold out of ORD with UA, upgrades are pretty much non-existent on most routes. I also find UA's MP program to be worse for redemptions that AA's as of late (words I never thought I would utter) as MP got Kirby'd in a big way during the pandemic. I also find UA's ORD terminals to be much more chaotic than AA's ORD terminals, but YMMV.

Thank you for an incredibly thoughtful response! RE:PQP at least UA lets the following count towards "spend" that AA does not:

• Most Economy Plus® purchases
• Most preferred seating purchases
• Paid upgrades on flights operated by United and United Express
• MileagePlus Upgrade Award co-pays

IME there's been a big shift the past three to six months. AA has killed advance upgrade space on the premium t-cons and my upgrades have stopped clearing at T-100.

Overall, I put AA just barely ahead of WN on the "truly unpleasant to fly" scale. UA is much better (with AS the clear winner IMO).