My thoughts on CO
 

Ever since CO became part of Star, they are my new favourites. Just to help others who are looking to chose a FFP, here is why:

1. No Starnet blocking like UA does.
2. Opportunities to earn miles like with the once a year Chase checking acct
3. Ability to combine some non-Star partners on a Star award such as EK and VS.
4. Ability to book awards on partners online including VS.
5. Waiver of call center fee if an award cannot be booked online.
6. Ability to change routing for free provided origin and destination does not change.
7. Option to earn CO miles with a fee free card through the AGR card (need transfer out privileges).
8. Ability to book tickets less than 24 hours away.
9. Ability to book an open jaw and stopover on an award.
10. When there is poor availability, CO allows one to redeem domestic US awards that have connection > 4 hours unlike most carriers (all?) which consider these as stopover (:rolleyes:)
11. Ability to change flights after departure.
12. Ability to mix standard and saver awards, economy and business class on one award at prorated mileage levels.
13. Ability to book standard (easypass) awards on some partners.
14. CO miles do not expire.


Some things I wish CO would do:

1. Institute one-way awards like UA and AA and not take away the stopover option like AA did.
2. Add QR and 9W as partners.
3. Allow mileage earning in low fare classes of partners such as LH like UA does.
4. Allow SPG to transfer at 1:1 into CO.
5. Elite Choice, CR1s, car/hotel rewards for all members, and ability to pay for club membership with miles.

Anyone else have an interesting positives about CO that are not listed here?

Huh? All I fly are cheapos and I earn 100%/100%

He may mean on partner airlines, like LH.

I agree that CO is good in many ways. However, when it comes to irrops or broken equipment, CO is quite parsimonious about compensation and accommodation, comparatively.

Exactamento.

Agreed. Award redemption rules is one of CO's biggest strongpoints.

8. Option to earn CO miles with a fee free card through the AGR card (need transfer out privileges).

What is this?

AGR has a credit card through Chase that has no annual fee and earns 1 mile/dollar. If you have transfer out privileges, then this is a good way to earn CO miles through credit card purchases without an annual fee.

By definition, the AGR credit card gives you transfer out privileges from AGR (with a limit of 25k miles per year, I think).

Not automatically, you need to spend $200 on Amtrak travel.

Pushing points through AGRs doing a fair bit of work to avoid an $85 annual fee, especially when paying that fee for the first time will net anywhere between 25-35k.

Personally I'm a big fan of the way CO handles awards and I hope they don't change it (although one-ways would be nice, assuming they don't castrate another feature to make way for that.)

And another under-appreciated gem in OnePass is the ability to push points *to* AGR -- they're some great redemption options out there if you find yourself frequently on a Metroliner.

Ditto for their airline partners, especially EK and VS.

true, also if someone earns more than 25K points in a year this will not be a benefit.

Yes this is true. I've done it before.

I actually don't fly CO, just use their FFP. I have to date never set foot in a CO plane.

I hope these benefits stay in a UA-CO merger.