Over the past couple of years Delta has been making some changes. No doubt about that. For good and for worse Delta frequent flyers are seeing differences in the way they fly, eat food onboard, eat food in the Sky Club and of course earn and redeem those hard earned miles.

Should Delta Copy United Airlines On This One Thing?

Delta has been “UP’ing” their food game and it has shown. I’ve found the Sky Club offerings and food onboard to be even better than in the past. But some of the mile program changes, especially redemption options have left a little to be desired from Delta.

And United has been right behind them making almost the exact award program changes every step of the way.

So this begs the question. Is United Airlines making any changes that are better than Delta’s?

I think the answer might be yes.

Delta entered into a partnership with Starbucks to serve Starbucks quality coffee onboard and in Sky Clubs. The coffee is good and a huge improvement over what was served before (think it was Seattle’s best.)

But United may have one up’d them with the introduction of Illy Coffee. Late last year United introduced a partnership with Illy to serve the “Gold Standard” with Illy’s premium blend to United flights and United Club locations.

I don’t know about you, but I much prefer Illy coffee than Starbucks, every time. I so much enjoy Illy’s product that this holiday, I even picked up an Illy home brew option.

Which do you prefer?

And more importantly, who is executing their partnership better?