Just fresh from the Preferred Gold desk starting March the 1 st US Airways will give there international elite travellers 500 miles per exchanged first class upgrade instead of 2000. That means 25 % of the old value. Lets say you give them 14 domestic first class upgrades you get 7000 miles in the future compared to 28.000 before.
By the way the new 500 miles is exactly what you get from big brother United.
In case you wonder if you fly mostly international you very often get 8 to 10 upgrades per 10.000 miles but only use 1 or 2 for the short domestic annex or you fly on companys money in envoy or first and do not need any upgrades. All this people end up with sometimes 10 to 40 upgrades which they can not use. For some of us that will mean they will get a domestic winter ticket instead of a free envoy ticket to from europe for there wifes out of their upgrades. Wow!!!!!!
If that is an indication of what to come I rethink my application for compstatus on other carriers.

US has an upgrade trade-in for miles deal?? I never knew this!

What a shame! My dad has thrown away dozens and dozens of the North American upgrade certs because he rarely uses them (either free upgrades on Y fares or MetroJet flights lacking First), and we never knew of this option.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

I've never heard of it either, but I'm guessing it may only be for members living outside of the US and/or North America.

It is only for non North American members. I have 35 upgrade certificates going from floor to ceiling in my office (pictures forthcoming). 70,000 miles would have been sweeeeeeet. Should have put a European address on my account! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Eurousair

I assume I´ve never been sent any information about this arrangement because I keep a CA address for my DM account?? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

Any other goodies I should know about as somebody who uses US exclusively for transatlantic flights?

Yonatan

P.S. for 2000 miles, that´s a good deal. But even though I don´t value FC that much (yet), I would not trade them for 500 miles a piece.

And this is United's fault... how?

Probably because United brought down the par.. but Bear96, you are right that it can not be traced back to the 'merger' or even Untied itself...

Still, it's a well known fact that the biggies (UA and AA) keep their FF programs much more conservatives than the smallies (US and TW). However, now that the smallies (all technical terms here, people http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif) are going away we're all stuck with the terrible benefits...

I recently read somewhere (and cannot remember where it was-- general media, like a major newspaper, I think) that in terms of the % of seats reserved for FF mileage redemption, American was #1 with UA a close second. I think the number was somewhere between 9 and 10% for both of them. US was at the bottom, with around 3 or 4% of its seats reserved for FF mileage redemption.

Bear,
do not take it personally it is just that exactly one month before they hope they get the merger approved they are changing a policy drasticlly to the low level United has. It very much looks like changing the unpublished benefits just in time so FT would not recognize benefits lost when the merger starts. Of course I have no proof but it looks suspicious even if you do not believe Elvis is alive. They did not change it to 1000 or 750 they changed it exactly to Uniteds 500 miles.
Its a 75 % cut for international travellers who often can not use the domestic first class coupons.
Sorry but keeping US Airways strong programm and joining the star alliance would have just been prefered by most FT on this board.
Even more so from the two highest levels of elite FT.
In proud recognition of your defense of United by all statistic measures you were running the worst airline in the industrialized world for the last 6 months. So it is a hard sell to expect an organization with this amount of problems to merge with any other partner.
But I can already promise you that I will stick with it for this year and check it out and you will hear and see the result of that try on this board and I will try to be fair.
Maybe you- meaning United- get it together.

You may be -- and probably are -- right. I think most of the FF on this USAirways bulletin board are more interested in upgrades (or at least that's what we talk about most of the time).

I'm happy to hear that about United, however. It will let me burn up my half million mileage plus miles as quickly as possible!

I've only had to book a last-minute award ticket once and had no problems.. so I don't know if it really is that difficult or not.

I don't know, eurousair; I have seen plenty of statistics lately, from on time performance for specific flights, to financial performance, that seems to indicate that US Airways is not exactly paradise either... certainly not that UA is perfect, I will be the first to admit. Although the last few months all the flights I have been working have been on time if not early. The disaster of last summer is definitely over, though I am sure this makes you unhappy as you take a strange glee in UA's troubles. UA is back to its normal, mediocre self, I am happy to note!

I am not taking it personally, as you say; I just wonder why you have such a huge grudge against UA, and can't seem to get over it. It's quite fascinating really, and more than a bit sad.

If UA really is evil incarnate, as you seem to believe as indicated by your postings over the months, you might want to consider not even trying UA again at all-- though I know that will deprive you of the thrill of posting and making a big deal of every little thing that goes wrong on your UA flights. There are lots of other airlines out there from Germany to the US. It might be better for your emotional health to just avoid UA if you hate it so deeply.

Wow!!!!! Bear that was the toughest personal attack I have seen on this board.
Its also sad because you seem to have not read all of my postings and I have never expressed hate but simply stated the disadvantages regarding many of Uniteds policies compared to US Airways. But I also have praised the ability to be hooked up to the star alliance, lounge acess and the lower 100.000 miles level for First class europe to NA flight awards. I have to say that if someone says he will give it a fair try than your response seems to be very emotional to say at best. I did not ask you to change your job did I?? Why would you pretty much tell a future customer to go to hell beforehand??? I assume that you do a good job on your flights and you can be a 100 % sure that I will recognize a good job in whatever uniform the person is working.
I HAVE NO HATE TOWARDS UNITED!!!!!!!!!!
I am not even one of the people shopping for alternative elite memberships right now nor do I plan to jump ship the second the merger is announced. Its also sad that you seem to be that frustrated that you can not seperate the reason for Uniteds bad performance from the people criticising it. Its not the customers fault that you have such a bad reputation. And attacking potential new customers should not be the way to make new friends.
Sincerely and shocked yours eurousair