1, 2, and 3 are definitely alignment with UA.

But not, as some posters who might not yet be familiar with *A are saying, alignment with Star. *A doesn't have specific requirements for how FF plans reward their members. Just between UA and US alone, which have a "closer-than-Star" bilateral in addition to *A, there are significant program differences:

Upgrades - UA: entirely instrument based. US: EUA "unlimited" like CO/NW/DL
Elite bonus - UA: 25%/100%/100% 3-tier US: 25%/50%/75%/100% 4-tier

I think that item 1, the baggage fee, was inevitable anyway given everyone else was doing it. But I wouldn't be surprised if UA wanted them to do it so that UA flyers (General Member MP flyers who don't get fees waived but are saving up RDM for their "dream trip") wouldn't find CO more attractive than UA once the partnership begins.

Item 2, the 500 minimum disappearing, also matches up with CO's new *A partners in the US. I expect that reading between the lines of Scott's announcement (which essentially says "gone on CO" and "still on this short list of partners") that all the other unnamed partners (in ST now and *A later) will also no longer get the RDM bonus. But we'll have to wait on that.

Likewise item 3, the top-level elite RDM bonus dropping to 100%, was probably to make CO OP as a program no more attractive than UA MP is in terms of RDM earnings.

I do wish CO would make 2 other alignments with UA: Get rid of the 50% EQM issue, and make 50K/Gold the Star Gold qualifying level.

The second of those would in fact be an alignment with most of Star, not just UA. If CO makes only Platinum be the Star Gold level with CO Gold getting just Star Silver, then OnePass becomes the absolute least attractive program in all of Star for international flyers who fly 50-74K EQM per year. I can't imagine that CO wants to create this disincentive when it joins Star. Yes, 75K is the norm for top-level-alliance standard in SkyTeam, but that's not the case in Star where most are 50K, some have oddball multi-year qualifications that average less than 50K for ongoing Star Gold status, and AC is as low as 35K for Star Gold.

I'm a little disappointed, having just matched for the 2009 program year to Plat from 1K and redirected my Q1 2009 flying entirely to CO from UA (Q4 08 was already booked out for me). But I'm not surprised, and my plan to switch business to CO was more based on service quality than mileage program comparisons.