Originally Posted by Lori_Q

Random thoughts...

I'd use the SWUs for business travel. I belive Z fares can't be upgraded with SWUs, but can be with miles, although you may get whacked with big mileage-upgrade copay fees on international flights. Also, Z fares are VERY restricted. Any change could cost you mucho mucho bucks, in both change fees and class-of-service changes. Z fare buckets tend be set to zero closer to flight time, so if you have to make a change, you may find yourself paying a big fee AND flying in Coach.

For your regional travel, please remember that they're changing the rules so that you won't get CR-1 certs until you pass the 75k EQM threshold. I forget when that happens, but you may want to check it before you make plans for your CR-1s. This sucks, bigtime, but apparently the UA Mileage Plus wizards think it's a fair tradeoff for the Unlimited Domestic Upgrades. You can also use miles for domestic upgrades, which could be a pretty good deal, since the copays for domestic upgrades are waived for 1K's.

Good luck! And congrats on reaching 1K!