To all my friends on FT, sorry for the sarcasm, but I have been researching other carriers with the intent of possibly doing a status match and definitely am on the verge of moving all of my business over to CO immediately. I've already qualified for Gold on US for 2008 and am currently within striking distance of Silver on CO. United is the only other possibility for me.
Honestly, from my "research" and my personal experience CO seems too good to be true. The recent round of cuts at PIT and the slow, painful spiral of US into an LCC with a (be nice)
severely degraded experience for the business traveler has pushed me over the edge. Someone please tell me where I am wrong on this.
1. Newer fleet than US with a continuous fleet upgrade going into 2008 and 2009.
2. B787s coming online in 2010
3. Far superior aircraft cleanliness
4. Much better in-flight service in Y
5. Free snacks in Y
6. Far superior domestic biz class
7. Significantly higher business class to coach seat ratio than US
8. US has been shrinking First while CO is in the process of expanding it.
9. Far superior International product
10. Business First International worthy of a world class airline (redundant but worth mentioning again
)
11. 75,000 Elite MIles (BIS miles) needed for highest elite level as opposed to 100K for US
12. Possibility of 150% Elite miles when purchasing higher fare level. This actually helps me a great deal as I not-infrequently end up buying last minute Y fares
13. Skyteam allows miles when traveling on Delta and Northwest which open up many possibilities for earning miles--all things being equal, better for me than *alliance with United/Air Canada
14. Presidents club (unless I am missing something) seems like a slam dunk compared to the US clubs. Many more cities, many more options with partners including Delta Crown Room and Northwest. Plus many international options. Free booze!! (ok I don't really drink much but its nice to have the option)
15. Cleveland is only an hour and forty-five minute easy drive from my "base" so flights doable directly from CLE as a backup.
16. Good TX connections
17. Mainline B737s PIT-IAH for west coast connections
18. EWR for all its problems still a lot better than PHL in the crappy hub race.
19. Codeshare and award availability through Virgin Atlantic (not sure if US has this)
20. Ability to status match to same level as I am currently
Negatives: From what I can tell, and maybe it is the "grass is greener" scenario, but there aren't many negatives and the ones I can think of are mostly weak points.
1. CLE and IAH still not as good facilities as PIT and CLT though they are close, and I will still O&D a lot out of PIT for the most part
2. IAH somewhat out of the way for Transcons
3. Wierd pricing from what I can tell. CO can occasionally have significantly higher pricing than US, but, of course, I can always use DL or NW.
4. Upgrade rate much lower than US, but my understanding is that the problem is most significant out of EWR and least out of CLE-though I have no illusions about this issue. This is probably the biggest negative.
5. Weak west coast route structure.
6. Virtually no direct flights from my home airports of PIT and LAX except to hubs.
7. Tight seating dimensions/configurations in coach on some A/C
Any comments are much appreciated.