Thumbs up to OnePass and Mileage Plus offering the best upgrade benefits of any major frequent-flyer programs on Earth.

Well...except for the current Mileage Plus program.

Or DL SkyMiles, or AA (if you're ExpPlat), or US (if you're Chairman status)...

What about (regular) miles earned before 2011, I assume they will just be bundled in, and I will be able to spend them from a joint pool in 2012?

Will any miles I have earned (with UA) count towards MM?
(Although I believe this area is still unknown, correct?)

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This post is just as laughable on this forum as it is on the UA forum.

So far in the post Mileage Plus/Smisek era I have LOST benefits from what was once the best FF program.

If E+ goes...what exactly are the differentiating factors? There are none.

In fact with AA, I will get 8eVIPs at 100k good on any fare, better than 6SWU good on some expensive fares with no sure thing upgrade/no refund and 2 CR's good to only some places. If I fail upgrade with either I end up in Y anyway so...without E+ for my soft landing...why would I put up with crap IFE and no WiFi on an airline without any legroom improvement?

No angst here, just looking for a better program. I guess I am leaving your "best upgrade benefits in the world" behind for you to enjoy for yourself. See ya on the dAArkside.

Also, it's quite amusing to see the COolaid crowd seeing this as more neutral or even improvement, as compared to MP folks whose program is being devalued and are steamed, and will soon show Simsek and Co how hard you will fight for loyal fliers outside of Houston.

You ain't in Texas any more big boy!

By CRAP IFE you mean the Dallas Symphony Orchestra? (a regular selection on trAAsh) . Or the non existant IFE on MD-80s, or the ghetto cigarette adapters? What does Arpey want me to do with it, light up?

Or the non existant direct tv?

Considering AA's IFE's system can't even connect to my ipod touch/iphone (available on CO+UA), I would hardly call the system crap. If you didn't know an IFE system could do that, you don't know what crap is.

The IFE on AA isn't much to shout about, I would say probably the best thing about it is the Bose Noise canceling headsets. I bring my own.

Huh? Under UA's current program, you're not eligible to earn CR1s until you become 1K. How do you figure you can earn up to 8 without getting to 75K?

Don't say carryover elites in Q1 of a year: UA status has expired in January for 2 or 3 years now, which means miles flown "this year" as a "Last year 1K" don't get you anything. The CR1 sweep isn't until February or March, and you're not 1K yet at that point.

Yeah, if you made 1K in 2009 for the 2010 year, then you could 8 CR1s by end-December 2010 (really January 2011) while flying only 40,000 UA BIS miles, if you made sure that there were 10K in each quarter. But you'd end up in 2011's program (old version) as a 2P with no more CR1s, no SWUs, and in practice no EUA/UDU chance.

As I posted in the UA thread on this, for normally sub-1K UA, sub-Plat CO flyers, the new program is a much better deal. Gives the 25-40K-something flyer incentive to go for 50K EQM. Since 1K (2008-2009 programs) and CO Plat (2009-2010 programs) isn't my "natural" travel pattern anymore, I like these changes.

Interesting.... Just got the email about the changes, and it said this:

"One change that will impact you directly is that after next year, the Presidential Platinum Elite program will be replaced by United Global Services�. Rest assured, you will receive all the benefits and services associated with Presidential Platinum through Jan. 31, 2012."

I don't think I'm a Pres Plat Elite.... Just a lowly Gold. Glitch in the email system or has my spend pushed me over the top somehow (I doubt that highly....)

My wife - who's a non-elite - didn't have that phrase in her email...

Weird. Guess my definition of "impacting me directly" is different than the system's.... Unless I should be waiting by the mailbox for a new card

So ... as for me I have about 6 more weeks of air travel and will need to use (sigh elite maximizer on 1 week to make 100K [versus what I was planning of long haul transcon with B fare]) ..

I am contemplating not finishing my time on CO with 100K and SWU's to swap back to AA ... versus maybe doing it ... what are your guys thoughts on this?

+-ADT

By crap IFE I mean no WiFi, no DirectTV, fuzzy little screens in the front of cabins or 5 inch drop down screens every 5 rows. I mean no power ports in Y. Basically other than ch. 9 and E+, UA's Y is pretty stale even compared to competitors. I've become accustomed to using my iPad and have enjoyed being my own personal entertainment czar for flights. Given that I would do the same for example flying the dAArkside. Does AA have inflight wifi? I really only use UA Y for the E+ benefit. There are no other incentives.

As far as hooking up your ipod to something on UA in Y, I think you might be mixed up. No way to plug anything in or hook anything up in Y on UA. C or F in the new configuration on a widebody, sure. But not in Y.

I have not read all the postings in here. But maybe someone can clarify. I read what Scott has posted and the email I got from CO too. So are there any changes on the upgrades with bf and using miles/cash?? Can anyone elaborate for me, thanks!!

I think that stays the same. The announcement pertained to the SWU's gained at different elite tiers.

Sillyness.

More CR1s or less CR1s has NO BEARING AT ALL on the overall benefits of the elite program, because they have no bearing on the number of F seats on the planes. They just change who gets the F seats.

More CR1s are better for lower-tier elites. More CR1s are bad for higher tier elites, because the easier CR1s are to get, the more low-tier elites can hop ahead of high-tier elites in EUA. That's all there is to it.


If you're top-tier elite, you want CR1s to die entirely.

It's a practical problem. Adding an elite tier requires software changes. They can't jut bump CO Plat to 100k without pissing the 75ks off, and they can't just throw a 75k teir in on UA either.

So we're stuck with what we've got for now.