dmodemd

I was very concerned about this from earlier this year since I was close to hitting 1MM natively on UA and wanted to lock in the old benefits. However, in all the descriptions of how the combination will work it seems clear that throughout 2011 both original systems were left intact, and any combination and calculation of the COMBINED UA/CO lifetime, and thus its benefits would all be under 2012 rules.

This is unfortunate in that UA/CO has been encouraging us to fly UA or CO throughout 2011 and be assured we would receive cross-credit in both programs. Unfortunately, this appears not to be so for lifetime miles.
Hence if you achieved a MM tier through combined lifetime miles in 2011, it would not register until the combined calc in 2012.

This was possibly going to affect me but it turns out I just could not get over the 1MM level on UA natively in 2011 anyway, so would have to take whatever I got in 2012, but this problem is going to affect some people.

I would suggest those individual cases make a direct plea to CS on this with the specific data as to how if they had put their CO flights onto UA in 2011, what difference it would have made.

For UACO it makes sense given they didnt have to include lifetime miles in the 2011 synchronization logics, didn't have to edit any native rules in either system, and just do a 2012 calc and evaluation under new logic. However, the right thing to have done for the customer should have been to include lifetime miles in with EQM rolling updates in 2011.