Well, the programme is not centered on the possibility of obtaining reward upgrades on other carriers. To be fair, most programmes will not even allow you to upgrade on partner carriers at all. There are many things wrong with the FD programme but complaining about the lack of availability of upgrade awards on CO ex Scotland seems to me scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Alastair: I am puzzled by that lack of availability ex EDI and GLA using OP miles. Obviously, there is less availablity on 752 operated routes. Still, co.com seems to indicate a reasonable amount of availability for standard standard business class awards (19 days out of 30 in April 2005on EDI-EWR) so I don't understand why EDI-EWR would be so much more difficult to upgrade for CO members than other routes.

As to the more general point, I agree that there seems to be little integration in ST and the benefits of the alliance are anything but maximised. But then, they have barely digested CO, NW and KL which constitutes a major expansion. Perhaps we should give them some time to get their act together (not that expect much, but let's be charitable).