As much as I do anticipate degradations in service over the next couple of years, I'm actually pretty relaxed about it myself. Let's face it, those of us who have travelled extensively for years and who hang around on sites like this have generally experienced all kinds of travel disasters and system limitations that we've learned to work around. Whatever happens, I feel that I'll tend to come out ahead of most others and pretty much get what I need out of the system.

In a way what ties my loyalty to UA as much as anything else is my familiarity with the nuances of their policies and systems. I've had to go through a steep learning curve to get up to speed with the PMCO side in the past year, but threads like this have helped a great deal (as well as transferring my elite status from PMUA). I expect to benefit from this knowledge in the coming years on COdbaUA and would prefer not to start from scratch learning the quirks of AA (been there, done that).

I'll just add that things will eventually work out with the IT system, one way or the other. Maybe the IT department will pleasantly surprise all of us, or maybe we'll see a total meltdown, followed by the airline bringing in a new staff that will do a better job with the replacement system.