Here's my experience with AA AAvantgage and UA MP programs that I like to share. This is intended for informational only. I do not promote one program over the other. Each person should exam and determine which airline program best fits his/her needs.

Each program has its strength and weakness. In my case, Hawaiian awards and upgrades are my priorities so it's toss up between AA and UA. Because UA has better schedule (out of IAD), I gives UA edge over AA.


Promotions: AA
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AA UA
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Web Registeration N/A Yes
Prompt Posting* Yes Maybe

My vote goes to AA because it posts all registered bonus miles promptly. But with UA I had to email/call several times to get bonus miles posted.


Upgrade from full-fare: UA
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AA UA
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Miles RT 15000 10000
Miles OW N/A 5000
Fee* $75 None

UA gets my vote on upgrades. AA charges $50/$75 (ouch!) for expedition if you don't have certificate at hand on top of additional 5000 miles. With UA, I was able to upgrade at the airport.


(Hawaiian) Awards: AA
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AA UA
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Stop-over Yes Yes
Open jaw Yes Yes
Both Yes No
On hold 1 month 2 days
2 FC 100000 120000

My vote goes to AA. Since I only redeemed for Hawaiian award, I can only comment on Hawaiian awards. UA doesn't allow stop-over with open-jaw; I was told that it's considered two stop-overs. For example, with UA I couldn't do IAD-HNL/KOA-LAS-IAD so I had to change to IAD-HNL/HN-LAS-IAD. With AA, I was able to do IAD-LAX-HNL/LIH-IAD and IAD-SFO-OGG/LIH-IAD. UA needs 24 hours to confirm seats on Aloha Airline seats but AA can confirm seats on Hawaiian at the time of reservation. Lastly, I can put the reservation on hold for a month on AA but UA only allows 2 days. I can make sure I have seats on AA while allowing me to work on miles or allows me to wait til a month before the travel dates to make changes. Last year, I had unplanned business trip to California so I had to cancel my award reservation. If I had ticketed I would had to pay fee to redeposit award tickets.

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Dan

dilbert

I find it strange that you were only allowed to hold the UA reservation for 2 days. In my past experience, they've allowed a 30 day hold as standard policy, and will even extend it a little if you ask. Did they give you a reason for the short hold time?

As for miles, I think the Star Alliance should come up with "discounted" awards when you redeem for an award that requires inter-line ticketing. Right now, you're basically getting two separate awards when you go say, ORD-FRA on UA and FRA-BUD on LH. It seems, by what you're saying, that oneworld has done this to a certain extent (as far as I know, AA does not fly to India).

I didn't want to do comprehensive comparison between two program. No way! I just wanted to share my experience with domestic upgrades and Hawaiian awards, no more.

As I noted it before each person should determine which program serves his/her needs best! Sorry, I don't care about Indian award tickets. I wanted to limit the discussion to three areas I mentioned.

BTW I'll be calling UA to request extension on reservation hold. With both programs, which rep you get is important since some are more accomodation than others.


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Dan

Here's the story with United:

They'll hold a Mileage Plus booking for two days without deducting miles from your account.

They'll hold a booking for 30 days after deducting miles from your account (there's no fee for redeposit if the reservation is cancelled without being ticketed).

But you need to be careful. Say you have 20,000 miles expiring in 1999, and lots more miles expiring in 2000.

If you first book a 25,000 mile award on a 30 day hold, they'll deduct 20,000 1999 miles, and 5,000 miles expiring in 2000.

If you next book a second 25,000 mile award,
they'll deduct 25,000 miles expiring in 2000

Oops....still getting used to this laptop .

Continuing the previous reply....if you then cancel the first award booking, and ticket the second award booking, the miles used will be miles that expire in 2000; and you'll have 20,000 miles redeposited to your account that expire at the end of 1999....probably not what you had in mind .

Hmmm. I'm not sure which pipe I was smoking when I mentioned that inter-line awards thing. I must have gotten my responses mixed up. Sorry about the digression.

And yeah, kurjan's right about hold policy. I forgot about the mileage deduction caveat...