In the air, CO offers a pretty fair product, relative to the other domestic carriers. Despite typical ground delays for being a EWR-based flyer (no fault of CO's), CO offers me a good, reliable in-flight experience on aircraft that are relatively new, and more often than not, clean. I don't rely on an airline to feed me or entertain me better than I can reasonably expect to feed or entertain myself, which is why I always make my own sandwich (even when traveling up front) and travel with my laptop or iPod. That written, I don't love OnePass as a loyalty program.

I guess I could cut and paste what bocastephen outlined, because I pretty much agree with everything that he wrote, and roughly in the order that he wrote them. I really dislike the fact that it is sport to try to redeem my miles at Standard levels. I don't always love the fact that I have to do a lot of the research (ahead of time) to redeem my miles. As a group, I think that FlyerTalkers are a pretty sophisticated group when it comes to program rules and how to search for availability and such with partners, so it must be very trying being a casual flyer who just wants to use his/her miles for a family vacation twice a year. This person might not always think to ask for partner flights, and the OP representatives are not as forthcoming as one might hope; they generally offer seats at EasyPass levels, rather than finding partners seats, which seem to have better availability to begin with. I have earned a lot of miles (in-seat) to use for reward travel, and everytime I try to use them, I have to (as bocastephen wrote) jump through hoops.

I can live with a lot of the other blemishes OP offers, but the inability to use my miles at Standard levels (while being beyond flexible with my dates) is a point of contention.

Continental is a good domestic airline. OnePass is an inferior loyalty program.