<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by cAAl:
For me, the one bright and shining light of CO (and NW) is the complimentary domestic upgrade policy for elites. But CO's award availability is atrocious, and its coach product is inferior. So I scratch my head when I read your anecdote about shelling out miles to garner a domestic upgrade. I presume you are a non-elite. If so, then why not fly AA where, when you don't have miles to burn on a domestic upgrade, you at least have a better coach seat (at least on the non-LRTC aircraft) and will be earning miles you can actually use without having to pay extra?</font>
Probably because CO devalues its mileage program by giving away nOnePass miles left and right to credit card companies instead of their valued customers. Personally, I've barely stepped foot on a Continental aircraft and yet I have hundreds of thousands of very useless nOnePass miles (though I have used the VS codeshare). In fact, the only times I've ever redeemed them was to fly someone else to see me!
If you fly very little, I suspect it would be very easy to redeem 20k for a nOnePass upgrade now and then.
[This message has been edited by AAlton (edited 08-06-2003).]