American Express Membership Rewards - Thoughts on CO's new alliance and how this will affect Amex cardmembers?

CO will be exiting Skyteam in the next nine months to join Star Alliance. How do you think this will affect Onepass Gold Elite (from the Centurion card) and MR transfers?

Good Question. Anyone?

This could be good for me since I am moving to Chicago in a few weeks.

MR transfers?

When Diners Club became a Mastercard, Continental was in the first wave of airlines to leave Club Rewards. Continental is also one of the airlines to which Starpoints transfer 2:1 rather than 1:1. My speculative interpretation of both decisions is that Continental agreed to protect their affinity card issuer, Chase, from direct competition. Chase seems to have steered United Airlines and Marriott in a similar fashion.

This raises the question why Continental remains a 1:1 Membership Rewards transfer partner. Is it because their relationship with American Express is broadly based and mutually beneficial, or is it simply because the contract has not yet expired?

I surely do not know, but I think Chase will play a much larger role in Continental's decision than will the move from SkyTeam to Star.

My guess (based on nothing more than pure speculation) is that CO will move away from AmEx much more than UA will move towards them. We can probably expect the lounge access to go away, for instance.

Well it means that we have Star Alliance Gold coming both ways (US and CO). But until something happens it is useless (but perhaps fun) to speculate. I would wager that even CO doesn't know yet all the details of what their frequent flyer program/partners will look like. They probably have months of meetings with their new partners to sort that out.

I've been getting the CO Gold card for years now thanks to Amex, but I don't think I have ever used it. So it's not really a loss to me.

...probably expect the lounge access to go away...

I don't see this. I assume CO's reciprocal club access arrangements with DL/NW will end and be replaced by the newly announced reciprocal arrangment with UA. Unless UA has more Red Carpet Club members than DL/NW clubs combined this shouldn't create a strain on CO's club facilities systemwide, though of course there will be individual airports with clubs which are too small or too large. American Express pays for each visit, why would CO be less interested in that revenue?

Nothing is going to change until late 2009 or early 2010 based on the timeline included in the announcements from yesterday.

Having *G via CO Gold would be nice for Centurions, but the CO release mentions *A lounge access for Platinums on international itineraries, not Golds, so that may not actually happen.

Regarding mile transfers and Plat/Cent lounge access, I hope that they remain the same, and both are based on AmEx paying money to CO, so right now I assume that they will stay the same unless AmEx decides for some reason that they're sick of paying CO for those services, but I cannot see CO turning down the money.

Having *G via CO Gold would be nice for Centurions, but the CO release mentions *A lounge access for Platinums on international itineraries, not Golds, so that may not actually happen.

But Centurions already have *G via US Plat. Why would having *G via CO Gold be any different for Centurions?

CO is going to *Alliance is great news for us, but only if we keep the MR transfers and Gold status for Centurion holders.

I really want to be able to use MR points to book reasonably valued award tickets on UA. I believe this is currently possible by sending MR points to ANA and than booking the UA award through ANA, but I have never done it before (and seems like a hassle).

When will I start to be able to redeem CO miles directly for UA flights?

Should I transfer some MR points to CO just in case they sever that link without notice? For example, if I knew that MR was going to stop allowing 1:1 transfer to CO, I would immediately transfer 250,000 MR points there.

Is there any precedent for how much notice AMEX gives us before eliminating a transfer partner?

Is there any precedent for how much notice AMEX gives us before eliminating a transfer partner?

In the case of Centurion, it is usually an annual thing. All benefits are up for grabs on Jan 1st. But I'm sure the fine print allows them to make changes at any time. I wouldn't guess we will find out anything about CO and Amex before January.

I really want to be able to use MR points to book reasonably valued award tickets on UA. I believe this is currently possible by sending MR points to ANA and than booking the UA award through ANA, but I have never done it before (and seems like a hassle).
It can also be done via AC.

When will I start to be able to redeem CO miles directly for UA flights? No one knows for certain, but late 2009/early 2010 seems to be the reasonable target date for everything to go through. CO can't bail on SkyTeam without sever penalties until nine months after the DL/NW merger closes, so that is a pretty significant milestone that things will be based on.