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.