Originally Posted by
IAH-OIL-TRASH
It's more complicated than that. AMEX is the one who gets charged for the access. According to the contract between AMEX and CO, only CO metal qualifies for CO being compensated. A PC receptionist letting one in on a UA plane and then charging AMEX for access would be basically fraud. If they decide to let the OP in, CO would ethically have to eat the AMEX access fee and not bill AMEX. Channa's suggestion to switch to a CO flight is the way to go to be sure.
And you have to show a boarding pass w/ your AMEX card to get in, not an itiniery.
I bet more of this comes up before the AMEX deal expires as we see more UA flights in/out of CO hubs. UA between ATL and IAH wouldn't have happened pre-merger.
I feel like since it says on the bottom of my boarding pass and at check in that "We've merged" that the fact that it's on UA metal shouldn't matter since they changed it to UA as part of the merger. Although if they do anything like UA does I'll probably get screwed over which tends to be my experience with anything involving UA.
I sent the CO twitter a direct message asking their advice, is there anyone else from CO I should ask?