Re: Continental/United merger. You are right. THat's why i've shifted all my travel for 2011 (including my staff, clients etc) to Delta. I'm so tired of the rules changing from airport to airport and the over-marketing (An "invite" for the One Pass MC placed on my food tray in first class? Really tacky), that's it's not worth it.
I'm sure most of the folks here know if you have a good FF history, other airlines will match your status.
We'll see how it works out , but Continental have really pushed it and alienated this 3 year Platinum international traveler.

As I write this sitting in the Denver airport...The two check in clerks at the United "Red Carpet" club couldn't agree with each other whether I was "allowed " into their club or not as Star Gold (says so on the door!), so I told them save the worry, i'll happily expense a meal to myself and not have the hassle.

Do you really expect much better as an international passenger on DL? The SkyTeam International rules are much more draconian than those of *A.

Well, the rules are actually somewhat confusing. Are you on an international itinerary today? The fact that there is a *G logo on the door does not guarantee access just because you are CO Gold/Platinum in RCCs (or PClubs or US Clubs).

Maybe this is very premature but when will the forums be merged, that way we can all start to work together as one.

+1

Moving to DL from any other airline is going out of the frying pan into the fire.

Being a DL refugee myself, who mainly flies international, it is doubly true for international routes.

Good to hear this is a no trolling zone. People can use manners, that is what they're for.

+1! I was wondering the same thing, though I figured it'd happen as the airlines start making more concrete mergers, such as joining OP and MP. But I think it should be done sooner and people can "prep" more, and perhaps let both UA and CO management/insiders/employees know what the combined pax of the airline(s) are thinking.

Kool-Aid refers to people's ideas? Labeling somebody a zealot refers to people's ideas?

My point is that the 5-10 most vocal anti-Delta posters during the "wars" often cast me and many other "moderates" (for want of a better term) as Kool-Aid drinkers, zealots, loyalists, apologists, etc.

Which totally misrepresented the overall opinions of the moderate posters, and reduced the forum to the equivalent of the political attack ads we've just suffered through here in the States. Dumb slogans that don't come close to representing complex positions.

Those 5-10 most vocal anti-DL posters also often then warped reality by accusing me of personal attacks when I criticized their stereotyping of me.

You may decide for yourself whether you were a member of the group which I then termed the "Gang of Five" until I was asked by the mods not to use that term.

A proper response to my points, according to your perspective right in this thread to discuss ideas rather than people, would have been to engage on my (and many others in the same boat) ideas that NW's FFP was great but the airline was not as good an airline as DL; that DL's staff seemed on the whole friendlier than NW's, that NW's website was far better than DL's and should have been kept, etc. How anybody expressing that mix of views could be labeled by simplistic and damning slogans such as "apologist", "zealot", "loyalist", "kool-aid drinker" escapes my comprehension.

I'm not trying to re-fight that battle here. I'm trying to ensure that none of us find ourselves in that same kind of battle this time, in the UA/CO merger and FT forums combination process.

???

Thank goodness I have no clue what this is on about but reading it twice I see no connection with the subject of no trolling...indeed seems to me more connected with the subject of trolling.

The term ''kool-aid'' does refer to accepting the corporate line without question, which too many did (and I would not call them ''moderates'') in the case of DL. That is refering to ideas. With DL's history, and I was a DL GM for many years before bailing out to NW, one should never put too much faith in DL's corporate line.

It appears some on this forum are too young to remember Jim Jones or have not read history books about the man and his followers.

http://www.raptureready.com/rr-kool-aid.html

I knew of the story, but I had no idea that's where the saying came from. And I've also only heard the term on FT.

The term is used in business extensively when referring to "buying into the corporate spin."

1. I'm definitely old enough to remember. I've also read all about it in "Tales of the City"

2. My suggestion that using "kool-aid" in the forum is a bad idea is because it's easy to stereotype people as "buying into the corporate spin" just because they don't happen to hate every single thing the "bad" airline is doing. Calling somebody a "kool-aid" drinker is NOT the same as debating the ideas the so-called kool-aid drinker is espousing.

For a DL/NW example from history, I don't care one whit that DL raised ex-Europe award fees, because I don't live in Europe. I know it's one of Carolinian's biggest complaints against DL. That doesn't make me a DL Kool-aid drinker, nor does it make Carolinian a "hater". The IDEA here is "ex-Europe award fees". The STEREOTYPE is "kool-aid drinker" and "hater".

See the difference? Perhaps we both agree on other issues: for a possible example, I think DL redemption levels in practice are horribly inflated, an anti-DL position, and I think DL onboard service at least in Y is better than NW was, a pro-DL position (I don't know if Carolinian agrees with me on this, it's just a hypothetical example). Calling someone with those views a "kool-aid drinker" or a "hater" ignores the idea and misrepresents the person's overall views. That's what I suggest we avoid in this CO/UA merger.

3. May I also suggest we ban snarky "are you a UA|CO employee" comments which have started turning up? That also happened a lot during the NW/DL wars with unnecessary accusations of people being employees or corporate shills.

However, it did out some people for the bias they were showing. For example, Mooper admitted to being a large DL shareholder, which certainly explained his down the line support of DL's position on any issue that came up. The reality is that there are people who buy into the corporate spin and there are often reasons that they do it.

On NW, I was virtually never in Y domestically, so I can't compare, but on TATL, NW onboard Y service was far superior to DL.