Originally Posted by WebTraveler
While there are certainly exceptions, nearly all of Continental's destinations can be reached on another partner. I do know this is not always true as there have been a few destinations where Continental was the only partner with flights, or the only partner with one stop. Perhaps if Alaska threatened to boot Continental over this, this would make Continental act more ethically. Again, within the PNW, Continental needs Alaska more. I have connected many times to Continental's EWR flights via Horizon from PDX-SEA; so these connection possibilities are giving Continental access to more customers.
The bottom line should be that Alaska needs to cut a deal whereby a certain number of itineraries are available. Base it on Alaska customers on Continental or something. But the current system is worthless. Continental is simply not playing by any reasonable set of rules and the Mileage Plan people need to wake up and knock Continental around a bit - or at least raise the issue and be forceful about it.
I understand your point, but I think you're looking at it as a MP member trying to redeem.
AS probably views the partnership as a whole, and I'm certain the CO partnership drives significant AS business, whereby the mileage redemption is small potatoes. There are a LOT of CO flyers who can and do fly AS as a result of the partnership. If AS-CO would divorce, then yes, AS would lose the CO mileage redemption (no biggie), but AS would also risk losing the revenue by that large group of CO customers (biggie).
As for CO's redemption philosphy, I doubt AS could pressure CO into chainging their mileage redemption philosophy. It's just as bad for CO members, so why would they open it up for someone else's members? CO thinks they're better off paying for a partner's seat and selling their own than giving it away for miles. In fact, when CO joined SkyTeam, they wrote down a several million dollar charge just to buy partner reward seats because they knew it would be cash out, not cash in transaction, in terms of mileage redemption.