Originally Posted by Armadillo4
One exception is probably CO's service to/from Hawaii. I was on a different message board yesterday--geared more towards leisure flyers--and one CO flyer made a pretty good case for flying CO vs. UA on flights to Hawaii. After doing some research here and on SeatGuru, I might have to agree. CO's 767s to/from HNL have better in-flight amenities than UA's two-class 757/767/777 domestic configurations. Their BusinessFirst seats are of the almost-lie-flat variety. And CO has personal IFE systems in both cabins. If I'm reading SeatGuru correctly, UA's domestic configuration of these planes do not have personal IFE systems and the first class seats only have 38" pitch. Of course, UA's big advantage is E+. But I'd feel strange to be in a UA 777 w/o my own video screen, airshow and 9 channels of entertainment on the longer flights. I guess I'm spoiled. LOL!
Well CO may have better service in F to Hawaii with their BF cabin but the only way to sit up there (besides the op-up) is to pay up big. The routes to hawaii are handled differently than domestic upgrades--i.e. no freebie elite upgrades. To use miles, their scheme is more typically miles/money based on fare class. CO F to Hawaii is either buy a F ticket or pay up.
I'll take UA Hawaii F service on a CR1 or even 500-milers any day of the week. Depending on what time of year it is, you might even consider using an SWU if it looks like it could go to waste.
For me when travelling to Hawaii, UA = F or CO = Y. I think you know what airline I'll be flying to Hawaii next time
On a related but different issue, every time they discuss the CO/UA rumor issue on the CO board they talk about how superior the CO service is relative to UA and how UA has a reputation of 'lesser quality'. Talk like this makes me plain mad. Well if you ask me this is just flat out wrong. As a reluctant CO elite (afterall I do live in Houston--so they are tough to avoid always), I find the service on CO to be lacking....between the general CO attitude of 'the customer is the problem' and a frequent attitude in the cabin of 'service with a sigh'...and this is in F...it's one step above 'whaddya want?' way too often on CO.
I was almost seduced back to CO with dreams of nonstops out of Houston....it only took a few flights on CO in the last quarter of 2005 to cure me of that... It was a big sigh of relief to get back on UA the last couple of weeks.