Originally Posted by
Sambeaux
I've read this quite a few times. I still haven't fully figured out what makes delta bennies superior. I've gathered that basically United seems to routinely be oversold which makes domestic travel difficult, is there more to it than that?
United is EXPENSIVE compared to Delta.. A lot more expensive.
United charges your parents and enrolled friend $36-60 per leg even domestic. Delta is free. If my parents both have to make a connection to get somewhere their standby trip in coach round trip can easily end up costing over $200. At that point buying tickets on Spirit is almost cheaper. United is charging us a lot of money for the privilege of flying standby and getting bumped off of oversold flights.
United charges ~$120 for business class international and ~$170 for first class international not including the added return fee for tax. I've taken both United and Delta first class round trip to the same city in South America. United was over $850 for me and my wife combined round trip. Delta was $106 round trip for the two of us combined.
Fees for my family on United can easily add up to thousands of dollars per year just to fly standby. On Delta I've never once gone over the $1,000 mark even flying almost all first class. I've also been able to help a few family members with the Delta buddy passes we get.
American benefits are somewhere in between United and Delta. They're cheaper than United but not cheaper than Delta and for some reason we can't list for first class which is annoying. Domestically my family takes American or Delta over United though because American is still cheaper for them.