Tag Archives for united airlines.
The United Business Card’s best offer is back: 100,000 bonus miles plus 2,000 PQP after $5,000 in purchases in the first three months. With a $150 annual fee but a $125 United travel credit, two United Club passes, and additional PQP earning on spend,. The headline bonus and the ongoing perks both pencil out.
United is planning a controlled overnight cutover next week that will take its key systems offline for roughly 2–3 hours — and it has already pre-canceled most departures during the window. While flights already in the air will keep moving, everything that depends on the reservation stack effectively freezes: schedules, booking, retrieving reservations, ticketing, cancellations/refunds, and check-in via United.com, the app, kiosks, call centers, and agency channels.
United is escalating its Chicago fight with American on every front—capacity, Wall Street messaging, and now a fresh set of ads that openly taunt AAdvantage. The new “AAdvantage, United” line is the kind of not-even-trying-to-be-subtle jab that only makes the rivalry louder as ORD turns into a full-blown marketing and schedule war.
United announced another Chicago capacity build-up on the morning of American’s earnings call, adding new frequencies after American rolled out new ORD routes last week. The timing is the point: flood the market, pressure its rival to back down, and avoid a long, money-burning capacity war.
United’s CEO Scott Kirby went out of his way on the earnings call to “draw a line in the sand” in Chicago—promising United will add flights to match any American expansion at O’Hare. The point of saying it publicly wasn’t bravado. It was deterrence: to signal to American (and to analysts) that new Chicago capacity will be met in kind, making growth less attractive for both airlines.
American’s response came fast anyway, announcing new routes from O’Hare—turning Kirby’s game-theory warning into an immediate test of whether this becomes a real fare war or a negotiation by headline.
United made a big claim in its latest earnings update: in 2026 it expects to take delivery of roughly 20 Boeing 787s—more widebody aircraft in a single year than any U.S. carrier has taken since 1988. The “since 1988” reference isn’t random; it points to one standout widebody delivery spree that still hasn’t been surpassed.
A United 737 MAX ran off the runway after landing in Houston, and the newly released incident report includes cockpit voice recorder audio from the aftermath. In the recording, the captain calls ALPA while passengers are still evacuating and is told not to “say another word,” then coached on what to do next—raising uncomfortable questions about how quickly self-protection can take priority even while the situation is still unfolding.
Vasu Raja is headed to United to work on monetizing passengers through inflight advertising, but that’s not the part of this story most people are getting wrong. The real mistake is the narrative about his tenure at American: he became the face of a broader strategy signed off at the top, and American’s ongoing struggles long outlasted— and outgrew —the distribution fight he was blamed for.
United is storing Pratt-powered Boeing 777s because engines and parts are scarce. More incidents could cause certification issues, with significant affects on United’s ability to fly long haul.
United and American are bringing Embraer E175 service to Carlsbad, and the local response is the most California thing imaginable: lawsuits demanding a land-use veto and CEQA review. Federal law makes it nearly impossible to block airline service at a public use airport, but that won’t stop activists and city hall from making it expensive and annoying anyway.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
