US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-2005 America West merger) - Gold to CP loses Upgrade trade-in miles.

I recently became Chairman's Preferred, and was very upset to hear that I will no longer be receiving domestic upgrade certificates, because my status allows me unlimited upgrades. I never use these upgrades (I fly transatlantic in envoy), so I trade them back in for 500 miles each. So, essentially, by becoming CP, I lose 4-5000 points for every 10,000 travelled.

I contacted US about this, and they said that they have had this complaint before, but didn't yet have a solution. I told them if they can't fix it, then make me a gold again.

I'm sure that you avid US flyers have seen this already. Anyone found an adequate solution?

Nope. We Chairman's Preferred know this for a long tim now -- USAirways has been year after year cutting away at Chairman's Preferred benefits and the advantage over Gold Preferred is becoming less and less.

I'm sure deelmakur has an appropriate rant for this topic. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

So, I can at least mail in my 20 certs that will expire next year while I'm still CP? I don't see the huge benefit of being able to resubmit certs for points if my main reason for status is being able to upgrade.

topshelff-

Welcome to the world of CP where you get some good benefits and then you don't. Seven days advance is good for domestic upgrades which is great for me because domestic is all I do but in your case I can see why you have a big loss. I lost out when they allowed 500 mile cash in credit on certs because all mine expired a few days before it became effective. Now if they could bring a few more mainline flights back instead of RJs I could get an upgrade.

Biggs and other CP's,

I am contemplating taking a couple more mileage runs before the end of the year to reach the CP level. I'm currently silver and will be gold in two weeks. The main reason why I would go for the CP level is the unlimited upgrades for me and a companion. And since you can't earn upgrades by flying a certain amount, I was curious to find out what has been your upgrade success rate? 100%? If I buy a ticket (non e-saver), can I expect to get upgraded all the time for all segments flown? My top flying destinations will probably be LAS, MIA (or FLL), SAN and SYR. Thanks in advance.

Although I'm not a CP, I can tell you as even a Gold my upgrade rate is 100% on upgradeable flights and 1 for 2 on non-upgradeable flights I tried to upgrade on.

The "problem" is that it is that even as a Gold its pretty painless to get upgraded, but admittedly I usually stay up until midnight to call for my upgrades.

The advantage would be not buying upgrades, which I've had to do a few times ...

I have upgraded on any flight I want this year and only missed once last year on a flight from PIT-RDU late at night, but had a close call on the redeye from LAX-CLT. So that means out of 250 segments over 2 years, of which 150 had FC, I missed once. If you do lots of short segments, CP is the way to go. If you do long hauls and can live in coach for short hauls, based upon Beckles experience, Gold may be adequate. When I was Gold, I had plenty of certs for the longer flights and never bothered for an upgrade on the 35 minute RDU-DCA run.

toppshelf, how many DMUP01 certs have you been able to redeem per year? When I was Gold, I was able to get up to 10 per year re-issued prior to expiration, which I did in place of redeeming for miles. When I got to CP earlier this year I was able to redeem only 10 for 500 miles each. The limit of 10 per year was quoted to me by various DM Gold and CP reps.

If the limit is only 10 redemptions per year, then perhaps your loss is not so large. My experience as CP is better than as Gold. My flights are mostly domestic, and the 7 day advance window, CP liaison "on-queue" upgrade process, and ability to jump to the top of the wait-list (in the occasional needed situation) greatly outweigh 5,000 miles to me.

Plus, if US does get bought or merges, then it's more likely that as a CP, you'll be in better position to get top status on the "new" carrier. In the case of United, from what I hear, it's much, much better to be 1K compared to the next level down.

I have redeemed over 50 this year in two separate groups. No limit was mentioned, and the points showed up, no problem. That is over 25,000 points, pretty valuable, no?

US contacted me to let me know they are still looking into it, but don't expect anything.

PitFlyer, I have no issues on this one. The bonuses offset the certificate trade-ins. The real issue is the loss of travel options with partner airlines. Given the demise of Sabena (and probably SR), we are running out of reward opportunities. Over the years, we had AA and BA. With them gone, and the limited route structure of US, these miles have already been devalued.