BA or United Airlines?

retepetsir

I'm busy researching destinations for our honeymoon next May.

We'd initially looked at Chicago then Las Vegas and back to London via BA, however flights were coming in around £860 each (£1720 total).

I then found that for £730 each (£1460 total) we can fly with United Airlines with Chicago, then Las Vegas, then San Francisco and back to London, which means we'd see more places and for a lot less.

However....I've just looked up reviews for United Airlines and they seem awful :eek:.

So do you think its better to pay a bit more and stick to BA with fewer destinations, or do you think saving money and going for the cheaper option would be alright?

It's out honeymoon so we don't want it ruined, but equally we're on a tight budget.

Thanks

richardw

It is £130 extra each for BA, for about 22 hours flying, so that's about an extra £6 per hour for a better airline with free alcohol.

headpin

The seat pitch on BA and United in Economy is the same. So, for $99 each per trans Atlantic sector you could upgrade to United Economy Plus which will give you about 4" - 5" more leg room than BA Economy. That would only add the approx same cost as the BA Economy flights extra price.

I've flown most carriers trans-Atlantic and you can get good and bad flights no matter who you fly with. And, it's worth remembering that free alcohol is not necessarily a plus, as flying dehydrates the body and alcohol just execerbates that.

Also worth remembering that BA Code share with AA, so you could end up flying with AA. Also AA would likely be the carrier on any internal leg that you took on a BA itinerary.

getmore4less

Check the flight time carefully to see if you can get the BA flight through an AA booking

retepetsir

Not so bothered about alcohol to be honest, nor is the other half. However it is our honeymoon so we might get a glass of bubbly anyway.

The 2 main differences are price and locations...other half would like to do San Francisco as well, and with United we could have 4 nights in Chicago, 3 in Vegas and 3 in San Fran then fly back to Heathrow. If we're going to encounter cancellations, etc as I've now read about quite a bit with United, that'll mess up the trip completely.

With BA it would be 5 nights in Chicago and 5 in Vegas then back to Heathrow.

I'm just a little dubious as to how much cheaper it is, as effectively that's with an extra flight included.

For United its all United flights, for the BA quote it was BA - AA - BA.

Tricky!

Edit: and do you think these fares are reasonable or should we wait? I did think they were good but then read about others getting flights for £500 or less return!

richardw

You could do UK-Chicago and San Fran-UK on one ticket and the internal flights separately on say https://www.southwest.com or other US airline.

retepetsir

Cheers, will take a look

pollypenny

I regularly fly to the USA. If you're young and want to see as much as possible of the place, I'd go for the cheaper option.

BA is ok, but not worth the extra cost; eg food has become considerably worse.

retepetsir

pollypenny wrote: »

I regularly fly to the USA. If you're young and want to see as much as possible of the place, I'd go for the cheaper option.

BA is ok, but not worth the extra cost; eg food has become considerably worse.

Thanks for that :A

Edit: and I'm 26!

luci

We've flown with both BA and United and had no complaints about either of them, apart from the food on the LAS-LHR leg with BA was diabolical. Can't remember the food on United being bad.

retepetsir

luci wrote: »

We've flown with both BA and United and had no complaints about either of them, apart from the food on the LAS-LHR leg with BA was diabolical. Can't remember the food on United being bad.

Thanks Luci, good to know.

I've been reading reviews about United but there are bound to be more bad reviews from those who want to complain. We flew with Delta to NYC and they were great, but reviews for them look even worse!