Non-Rev Benefits
 

Looking to make the switch to join the UA team. How does United’s nonreving experience compare to other legacies? Nonrev benefits are one of the important benefits for my family and I as we travel a lot from our home in Europe.
Is Polaris near impossible to be cleared into? Do UA passengers get free upgrades to fill the Polaris cabin?
Does United have good zed benefits including business class zed benefits?

Thank you all!

I don’t think there’s a legacy with an overall better non-rev experience than any of the others. We do operate a lot of flights to Europe, which is probably helpful for your situation.

Polaris is free if you use your vacation passes. Otherwise, there are charges. (Around $100 per person from the east coast to Europe.) Good news is your entire family traveling together only uses a single vacation pass, so you can get multiple crossings per year out of your allotment. Polaris isn’t impossible to get, but you’ll usually only get it on a very open flight as a lower seniority guy.

Our ZED network is extremely broad (including most major European airlines), though most carriers only allow economy cabin travel. Those that do allow business class charge more if you are seated in a higher cabin. Lufthansa is one that offers business class. They also changed their cost structure to “super low” recently so it’s one of the cheaper airlines to buy ZED passes on.

Id favor AA slightly.

Priority is time of checkin not seniority
No charge for business or first
No business zed agreements though

But in both cases lie-flat transatlantic is highly hit or miss (though neither upgrades rev pax to business willy nilly)

I'm an outsider but did spend 3+ years as UAX. Before that I worked for Delta mainline (non-pilot). I've also jumpseated on AA several times. United has always seemed hardest for me. The flights are always packed and, more frustratingly, a flight that looked like it had a good number of seats open will suddenly mysteriously become completely full within a few hours of departure. The good part about UA is their app. It shows a seatmap of the plane and shows the people on the upgrade and standby lists, so you can get a better idea of what's available and who will be upgraded.

Yep, happens ALL the time. The key is to check the flight 24 hours prior to departure, take the number of open seats available, double that, and that new number will be how far the flight is overbooked by the time you show up at the gate.

I've pass traveled with my large family back and forth to Europe in the summer for almost a decade. I didn't consider pass travel benefits when applying to the majors, SWA was my top choice out the gate. But the benefit with UAL has saved me a huge amount of money, high five figures if you consider how often we score Polaris. In addition, we now often connect via ZED in FRA or MUC on to our final destination at my in-laws. One great thing about ZED on Star Alliance is you can usually list for FC, on non Star carriers such as KLM or BA you usually cannot.

Summer pass travel is not for the faint of heart, but as I've gotten more experienced I've gotten better at rolling with the punches and anticipating what will work. Making very flexible plans is key. As my seniority has improved so has our success rate of getting Polaris across the Atlantic (approaching 50% now). As my kids have grown, being split up inside airplanes or between airports is not a big deal anymore (but it used to be a significant problem). Due to the sheer size of our TATL flying I tend to think UA is the best choice for your situation (unless you'd be traveling to see inlaws near London/AA or Paris/DAL). Feel free to PM me with more of your details and I'd be happy to give more specific insight.

I nonrev all the time, and have saved thousands in just a few years here. As a commuter I got pretty savvy at reading the tea leaves for jumpseating and nonrev travel, a little experience goes a long way with working the system to your advantage.

United’s app is absolutely the best in the business. One word of caution to your comment above, the seats listed as “available” on the seat map are not really related to the loads for that flight. They are simply seats that haven’t been assigned yet. As SK mentioned recently, basic economy bookings have exploded in the last couple years. All these passengers (and lots of others) can’t/don’t choose their seats ahead of time, so the computer does it for them as the flight gets closer to departure, which is why those seats “disappear”.

United employees have access to the NRSA part of booking in the app, this tells you the actual loads in real time. A workaround for nonrev on other airlines is through the myidtravel jumpseat booking section. After you pick a flight, there’s a “show details” area which will tell you how many of each class is not booked. It’s helpful, but if the airline overbooks their planes the numbers may be a bit off so use it at your own risk.

How many vacation passes do you get a year? Also, do you have to pay the upgrade charge when you list, or are you charged after you receive a seat assignment?

I've noticed more confirmed revenue upgrades on international AA flights than usual lately :(

Staff Traveler app is the best for that

Staff traveler for the win.

Follow up question.

What does the quality of life situation look like for both reserve, global reserve, and line holders, in regards to actually being able to use the flight benefits? How difficult would it be for a junior FO to get an 8 or 9 day block off in a row to go non rev somewhere?