It's actually funny you mentioned this as the reason I went to UA in the first place (beyond E+ and int'l upgrades) was that it was *A and CO was SkyTeam. Oh well.

I've found UA and CO each have their niches (CO for domestic travel and discount paid international J and UA for international E+ and upgraded Y-->C) in my world and still unsure about how to go forward with the upcoming shuffle.

That said what I have concluded so far is that I plan on staying with CO for 75-100k EQMs (mostly domestic) and am thinking UA for international (60-100k). Yeah I'll loose 25% RDMs as well as some points for my AUS/SAT <> IAH flights but all-in-all it really does impact me that much.

I also think CO has one of the better cultures and their willingness to listen, respond and interact with us is impressive, even if it means distributing bad news. Case and point: yesterday after the announcement I stopped by Smith Street and talked with Scott and others about these changes as I personally felt the way they were implemented was dumb (1st free bag = product differentiator...why give it up?! Why take away both the RDM and EQM 500 min?! If realignment's occurring, we'd better damn well see award rate reductions to offset the loss in bonuses as well as few other issues.) Believe it or not, Scott and the 17th floor fought hard against these changes (seriously) and did manage to shield OP from far more vile changes plus there's some relief coming down the pipeline but it's just not quite yet ready.

But that's the reason I started this thread as I suspect the average traveler of all groups won't really be impacted to a large extent (let alone notice the changes, except for the non-elite and the 1st bag fee.) Those who will fill it are shuttle customers (i.e. intra TX, east coast, etc.) and chances are WN or AmTrak might be a better deal from almost every front...and coincidentally those are the customers who have complained the loudest.