Originally Posted by channa

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.