Agree. It's a step towards integration that materially effects customer and shows integration.

Even if that were true - and I do not believe it is - right now they are not working on the integration; they are working on existing as separate entities. There are thousands of people who would have nothing to do if they were behaving that way.

Honestly, do you think both carriers are going to sit there and do nothing, then when the DOJ clears the merger, suddenly rush into a meeting and ask "how are we going to make this work?"

They started integration analysis before the merger agreement and I would bet they are deeply into it now - IT systems, res/ticketing systems, fleet/route planning, product planning, identifying redundancies, group leadership candidates, and even mundane things like which commercial bank to use, which ad agency, etc.

All of this needs to be started many months in advance to ensure a smooth transition or merger day and the months to follow will be a total disaster.

No. I know that there will be people thinking about that but they are not going to be implementing the merger changes prior to the actual merger, so those developers and analysts are going to need something to do.

If it is an IT integration issue, why wouldn't on the UA side the gate agents be instructed to cheerfully provide an E+ seat if one is unclaimed and just say thanks for your business?
Trying to get a CO gold or plat to have to PAY for E+ at the gate when one exists is counter intuative, just as Channa points out about why they would not back burner this initiative.
Over at US, if you call reservations and ask for exit row seating as a *A gold through CO, they cheerfully comply and do it manually, even though there is no IT intergration on this either.
No reason to withold the seats at the gate. Everyone knows its coming anyway.

Not At All Mundane
 

Yup

All of this & much more have been in the works for a long time

I'm hoping we'll hear something positive from COInsider about this soon. I have two itineraries on UA coming up in July - PHL-SDF (via ORD) and PHL-SFO. I can buy-up to E+ on the transcon for $118 (at least until next Wednesday), but not having to pay for it at all would be even better.

I've had good luck at getting E+ by asking the gate agent. The only place this has been a problem has been at LHR on one trip. There they wanted $ but I ended up in E+ anyway for that flight when they op-upped my traveling companion and gave me the newly-vacant E+ seat.

Me too. I am convinced that CO will stand by its word. Now what Mid-2010 means is another issue... :D

I Don't Know About That.
 

As CO is wont to say at the end of a flight -- "We know you have a choice of carriers, and appreciate your business".

Well if they leave this Gold elite Px in the dark much longer, I am bailing to AA. AA's challenge program is getting more and more tempting as UA and CO continue to neglect CO elites.

Not all CO elite Pxs are cheering this move. I've been CO elite for 5 years, but I have no loyalty to UA. The brass needs to practice what the FAs promise, and show us some appreciation. These guys better realize this is one fish they need to fry now, or they will hemorrhage many of CO's best customers .

A gold elite?

If you have no loyalty to UA, why would you be flying them instead of CO? OH, maybe you want access to E+, which is far better than CO's butt-breaking Y? But CO... oh CO doesn't have E+...

A CO GA at SFO told a UA 1K yesterday (Friday) that the GAs intially heard June 1st for UA upgrades on CO flights. She then added, "but we haven't heard anything since the initial announcement."

And you know how that will play out. Some will get the memo, others will not, and it will be total inconsistency. It needs to be handled at the system level with the agents doing things manually as necessary.

It's already bad enough when a real policy change comes into play. Look at CO's IRROPS handling of *G customers. It's been about a year now since they've published their internal procedures, yet they violate their own procedures daily.

I think it's time for CO Insider to make a reappearance with an update, although "mid-year" would be around July 1st.

His last post on the issue was only 30 days ago. How often do you need updates?

They'll announce it when it is ready. Chill out.