I'm a long-time Silver, and have had great success using reward travel on CO - but with great frustration on the partner travel.

In Spring '98, I cashed in an old "WIP" coupon to get 2 BizFirst seats to England. I had to fly in to Birmingham instead of London, but I got the dates I wanted on my first try (3 months ahead) and the BF seats 30 days before each flight (I could have had coach to London, but decided I'd rather take the train from BHX to London and fly BF).

Beantown - the "30 day rule" is CO's practice of not releasing any FC/BF seats for reward travel until 30 days in advance except with EasyPass reward levels.

In Fall '98, on 2 months notice, I got 2 coach seats EWR-SFO.

In Summer '99, I bought cheap seats EWR-LAX-HNL-EWR to take my wife and kids (then ages 6 & 3). When we got off the plane in LAX to spend a few days with family there, she looked at me and said "how many miles will the upgrade cost?" On August 20, the Aug 23 LAX-HNL was full in coach with Golds on the waitlist, but the Aug 30 HNL-EWR had 4 BF upgrades for 70,000 miles.

2 weeks ago, we decided to visit friends in Warsaw this fall. I called CO & DL, to get tix on AF. DL gave me confirmed seats (JFK-CDG-WAW and return) on the spot. CO said "we'll put in a request, and get back to you in 5-10 days". 4 days later, they called with seats EWR-CDG-WAW and return; the flight time to Paris was 20 minutes off from the AF flight out of JFK and the CDG-WAW legs were the same as with DL, but the return to EWR was 6 hours earlier, so we're going with DL.

I've never tried to book 2 weeks in advance (except for the HNL upgrade), or at really peak travel season, but I think I get my "miles" worth out of reward travel.

[This message has been edited by CO FF (edited 07-30-2000).]