It's funny, because CO used to be considered one of the "tightest" program, on which it was really hard to redeem miles. Easypass was scorned as "Sleazypass", when there were easy awards to be found on other airlines.

From worst to first..

I'll add CO's excellent website. For 90% of my award redemptions I never have to call in, I can find availability on CO or a partner (was NW, now UA) and book everything online. AA also has a great website, but UA and US are generally phone-ins (and finding an agent who will help you is a huge pain!)

But for any reason if you need to call CO, it can be a nightmare.

If that's the case then I would think you would want to write:

11. Wider range of *A partners on which RDM Elite bonus applies

I have not experienced this, by and large. The vast majority of the time when I do have to call CO, they take care of the situation ASAP.

darn, just found that one cannot earn 1.25 miles even with transfer out privileges in AGR as SPG-AGR does not get a 25% bonus.

Starnet blocking
 

OK, please forgive my total ignorance, but what the heck is Starnet blocking?

Haven't flown on UA in quite some time having used up all my miles years ago.

And does anyone think the "new UA" will continue this Starnet blocking practice?

When you redeem your UA miles on LH for example, UA has to pay LH for the seats, so to reduce this payment, UA prevents you from getting these seats even if LH makes it available. There is one big thread about it.

Thanks. Found the thread.

I certainly hope this situation at UA changes for the better when the merger is consummated. I have found CO to be quite user friendly with regard to booking awards on partner airlines.

CO has put in a lot of work into supporting all of the :-: partners, many of them online as well. However, they did make a statement during an earnings call, I believe it was Q2, where they were experiencing a high volume of OnePass rewards booked on partners which was expensive. One would think that CO management would hate to waste all the IT integration effort they've put forth into allowing partner bookings via agent and online, but you never know. I'm really interested to see which philosophy will win out in the potential merger.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that this issue occurs due to the lack of CO metal seats they allow. I would bet that many of these partner awards were due to no CO metal seats being available. It probly goes to show that in terms of its own metal seats being available CO is on the lower end than many of its :-: partners.

Trust me this happens a lot less than AA. I am switching all of my business to CO as I have had it with AA and their mechanicals. AA has a decent system in place for irrops but i guess you only get good with practice and AA has a lot of that :D.

LOL

CO as part of *A
 

Someone on this thread expressed CO as being their new favorites after Co joined STAR. I agree.

My wife and I wanted to go on a special trip for our 10 year anniversary. We decided to go RTW and focus on 3 cities in Asia, and then a few days in London. Since we are: both UA 1Ks; I am CO PLAT and She is CO Silver and between the both of us we have over 2.5 million redeemable miles between the 2 airlines, we will be doing int in FIRST, with hopes of riding the SQ A380 SUITES in one of the legs.

I spent 4 weeks calling UA 1K to try to book the RTW, for 400,000 miles apiece. No can do. All I kept hearing from the CUSTOMER-NO-SERVICE FROM Bangalore was: "not awailable, not awailable."

I then called the fairly new Star Alliance desk at CO One Pass. WOW! It just took 3 attempts and a very dedicated young lady in Salt Lake City. We have a FIRST CLASS RTW itin (not the ideal, but very good indeed) and, since I am a CO PLAT, we can change the stopover points, dates and flights with no penalties. And all of this for 280,000 miles apiece. I am waiting for the US summer to end so we can get close to our ideal itinerary.

CO Customer Service RULES! I am looking forward for the new airline's management to get rid of the dead weight and the wretched CS culture at UA.

I agree, especially after dealing with UA's ICC. AARGH, they are bad in most cases. If too have booked complex rewards via CO agents, and they always nail it, even resorting to underhanded tricks to get me the flights that I want.

In fairness, UA elites don't have to deal with the ICC, so that might make a difference, but still, CO agents have been very good in my dealings with them.

I will say - that I have been flying CO for about 5 years now, prior to that trAAsh, and prior to that United. I left UAL after UAL exited the NYC market.
AA is well, trAAsh.


In those 5 years of flying CO, I have not been delayed because of a mechanical problem. Not one. I think it's because CO's planes are generally brand new, fuel efficient and very well maintained. Not one mechanical problem. And I do quite a bit of flying.


CO's personell are also well trained, and generally follow established procedures/the manual. If fly CO enough, you start to notice all the consistencies.

Onepass used to be sleazypass - but at the end of the day, if I want to use an award, I want to travel at the time & place that is most convenient to me. If CO/UA can't do it and a partner can, why not?. Is this not the promise of Star Alliance?

CO is getting quite a bit of feeder traffic from *A - this has to go both ways.

I will be quite disappointed if starnet blocking comes up in any sort of form.
As any NYC flyer, we have choices.