thanks to all for your input -- i haven't had a chance to check this thread until now and was pleasantly surprised to find so many responses.

to answer the couple of questions y'all asked:

i think us airways is circling the drain for a few reasons. first, even after bankruptcy reorganization, they have some of the highest cost-per-seat-mile numbers in the industry, and are continuing to hemorrhage money. they did manage to post a meager "profit" in q2 this year, but only because they factored in an enormous bailout check from the government. in q3 they lost another $90 million dollars, and while the numbers compare favorably to q3 '02, they can't keep going like this.

on top of those problems, they have contentious relationships with labor, who at this point would rather see the company drown than concede anymore money -- i.e., there ain't much to cut back form here.

AND their frequent fliers are becoming increasingly restless about the depths to which their first-class product has sunk over the last two years (see what i mean over on the us forum -- at least 25% of the threads reference this problem).

my suspicions were bolstered by some recent industry analysts' and market analysts' comments made during the past several weeks. us airways' reissued stock, which has lost 25% of its value already since being relisted 6 weeks ago, was the only airline stock not to rise in the recent market rally, and is now rated "sell" by most of the anaylsts who follow the market, presumably because they foresee another ch 11/ch 7 in the company's future.

question 2, about my flying habits and what's important to me in a ff program. well, i only fly out of chs about 30% of the time because the fares here are so prohibitively expensive. mostly i fly out of sav, rdu, and atl (although for some int'l itineraries, i fly out of chs). it's amazing what you'll do to save a few hundred bucks a pop when you pay for your own tickets and fly as much as i do (i'm usually buying tickets for me and soon-to-be-mrs. overpaidslacker, so that money adds up).

upgrades (domestic and international), fair allocation of ff miles, and accessiblity of award tickets are probably the things i care most about in a program (is there anything else?)

sorry for the verbosity. thanks again for everybody's insight. hope this helps you help me.

-- he who slacks

[This message has been edited by OverpaidSlacker (edited Dec 15, 2003).]