Continental or American
 

Any opinions out there regarding whether it is better to fly on American or Continental between San Francisco and Buenos Aires?

Assuming you are in coach, there is not much of a difference between them, IMO. Both have looped videos on the long-haul portion, and neither will set your world on fire with service.

I would choose based upon any mileage considerations (i.e. if you have an account with one, or if you are elite). Otherwise, I would choose very strictly on price, even if the difference were only a few dollars.

Agree to an extent with "travelgourmet" but more info would be helpful. I would prefer to connect thru IAH (Continental) than DFW or ORD (American) although AA has a connection thru MIA on a 777. I have flown on the 777 in both classes and think it is one of the better long haul airplanes out there.

With the merger of CO and UA you might end going thru ORD anyway. Not a bad idea to avoid connections in the Midwest and Northeast in winter.

Good luck, heading to EZE myself at the end of the month, probably on AA out of MIA.

I have flown American internationally many times but the flight from DFW to Buenos Aires in Coach was not pleasant. The seat was in a much more cramped space than in the original connecting domestic flight.
It was eleven hours of being very uncomfortable. On a recent international Continental flight I had much more room in Economy.
As far as traveling to South America, next time I will fly LAN Airlines as everyone I talked to was happy with their flight down unlike those of us on American.

I'm a CO loyalist so biased, but find AA's planes to be showing their age whereas CO has a newer fleet. The merger with UA does give you more options - there is SFO-LAX-EZE which actually stops and changes planes in IAH but sells for several hundered $ less than SFO-IAH-EZE. There is even SFO-IAD-EZE. I have flown IAH - EZE on CO in the front cabin and it was great.

Lan has a new service, nonstop SFO-Lima, connecting easily through LIM to EZE.

I have miles on United, but the route through DC takes longer, and, of course, it's impossible to get a ticket with my miles. So, I'm thinking that CO is probably the best option.

AND flying Continental will give you United FF miles to add to the ones you already have.

Unless there were a big disparity in price or the flight times/connections were bad, I would take Continental just to stock up on the miles. Otherwise, I can't imagine there's a huge difference in coach.

I have flown both and prefer CO any time. I just flew AA to Rome, from JFK. Seats were somewhat cramped. I have not flown Co to Europe but to Aruba and the seats were more with more room, and comfortable. I went AA this time due to schedule and fares.

Assuming fares and schedules are equal, I would choose Continental every time because I find them to have awesome customer service in general.

Check www.seatguru.com to see any seat differences.

One issue that could occur, as it did to me early 2009, I went to EZE but my baf went to ZHR (Zurich).

took 5 days to get back.