coolcoil

I am curious to know about the experience that elite level Lifemiles members have, especially flying Colombia to the USA. UA and COPA are divorcing their programs next year, and I think I'm not going to be satisfied with either of those as a stand-alone program. I live near MDE and fly to the USA about 20X a year and do a little intra-Colombia flying as well, so I've been thinking about switching my *A program to Lifemiles.

I like flying AV, and it seems to me that combined with TACA/LACSA there are more flights to the USA than offered by COPA. I have also started flying AA a lot, and my plan is to keep mid-tier elite level with AA and a *A carrier so that I can pick the best route and prices for a given trip and still have lounge access and a good shot at an upgrade. It's helpful that I can get to Gold on Lifemiles with only 40K miles.

My specific questions are:

1) I see that there are complimentary upgrades. If I'm on SAL-USA or BOG-USA routes, will I have a good shot at getting an upgrade?

2) How is the upgrade list prioritized? I tend to look for low fares and book a couple of weeks out. I see that AV does upgrades for all levels 48 hours out, and I am wondering if a Silver on a higher fare would be ahead of me.

3) A lot of the flights that would work well for me connect through SAL and are on TACA/LACSA. As noted above, I have been pretty satisfied with AV in both economy and business. Can I expect the same of the other two airlines?

4) I haven't read a lot of horror stories about connecting in SAL, so I'm assuming it's generally a painless process. Is that correct?

5) If I am regularly connecting through SAL, do I need to have a yellow fever certificate? I'm assuming I don't need one for normal connections, but I'm thinking there might be an occasion where IRROPS might require that I stay overnight in a hotel.

6) Is the lounge in SAL decent? One thing I don't like about COPA is that the lounge experience is not as good as AV. Is the SAL lounge like an AV lounge?

Thank in advance for any insight you can offer, and if there are salient points that I have overlooked, I would like to hear about them.

JohnnyColombia

hey coolcoil

1&2) Do a search for miranda.mario. It is an AV elite on FT that frequently complains about AV/TA upgrades. I have also complained about my upgrade mechanism, it simply doesn't work. AV IT is AV IT after all.

3) I never flew LACSA but my experience with TACA were so positive that I felt it was a shame that they had merged with AV as they would invariably drag down their service levels. A Salvadorean crew is at least for the time being far superior to a Colombian crew. They seemed to ooze courtesy and professionalism. On the downside TA A319s do not have the IFE that AV has

4) I love SAL, it is tiny, there is a bit of pointless security theatre to get on a US bound flight there but you should probably complain to the USA about that.

5) I didn't know El Salvador had a yellow fever requirement, but FYI you can get this free at BOG to the left of international check in opposite the ATMs

6) Dunno, I have not been to the lounge, but there is a great little bar, cheap prices and they take USD

erik123

Lounge in SAL is not very good - very basic. The airport is a bit of a dump also. Transfer is not difficult but does require an additional security check which is a pain as lines can be quite long and there is no elite line. TACA business is nothing special - similar to US F though food slightly better.

coolcoil

Thanks to both of you for your responses. You did confirm my expectations about SAL.

As for the upgrades, I did the search that JohnnyColombia recommended and did find what I had feared - that the process is opaque and you cannot count on the upgrades no matter what elite level you have. Actually, COPA is just as opaque, though I have been consistently upgraded.

At this point, I'm not sure what I'm going to do, though I'm leaning toward switching to AV.

keitherson

COPA is much better. While there are a lot of "last minute upgrades" offered to special well-connected folks in South America, COPA has the entire MileagePlus upgrade process in place beforehand. Avianca is a black box.

Keep in mind that COPA is also launching its own loyalty program later this year.

WingedWorldExplorer

Hope they buy AV's Old Program Maybe they can get it for free.

coolcoil

The fact that COPA is introducing a separate program is what is making think about the switch. Since we don't know what the program will look like for a while, I am hesitant to stay committed to them.

They have been very good about the upgrades under the UA rules. If they keep the same rules, then great. I suspect that if I go with them my UG percentage would stay pretty high, as the occasional CM flyer who has status with UA will no longer be competing with me.

Cost is also an issue. I fly CM a fair bit. I'm 1K mostly through CM miles and flew 77K PQM this year. I did not requalify for 1K since I flew 60K miles on AA. The reason for the switch is that CM pricing, at least on the routes I take, has been noncompetitive. For example, I'm pricing out a trip to Washington and Chicago for late January, and CM is $200 more than AA and AV. It's been like that for most of 2014. Since my boss lets me live in Colombia and pays for me to travel back to the US often for work, I try to repay the favor a little by keeping the travel costs under control.

Even at similar pricing, there are lots of things that I work better for me on AV:
- Better lounges
- More comfortable Y seats on the Airbii
- Some non-stops to US destinations from MDE
- Better J seats and IFE on the routes that I fly (IAD and ORD don't get the new CM 787-8B's).

That said, I do recognize the truth in 'The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." So, I haven't made up my mind yet.