My gut is that BF to Hawaii is toast. CO simply did not have any aircraft capable of serving IAH/EWR-HNL with a domestic F configuration. UA has plenty. UA is big on using premium aircraft when possible, and if Hawaii made sense for that, I would think they would have tried it by now.

I might be off, but that's my gut on it.

Sign me up! But I'd be flying AA from SFO to ORD for that "parade".

UA 1k here. If you want entertaining reading, head over to the UA boards to read about the changes. Almost everyone is furious (count me in that group as well). On balance, CO was improvoed while UA was devalued, which is what we all expected (but were still upset about when it actually happened). My prediction is that WHEN (and you know darn well it will happen) E+ is removed the mass exodus from old UA will start (which will be another benefit to old CO people).

I'm switching to AA when they deep six E+. Hope to see some of you there.

TWA Fan said:

"Again, the complete, Soviet-level blackout of information on E+ is not a good sign..."

...And he's right. If the decision had been taken to retrofit CO planes with E+, then they would be shouting it from the rooftops. The silence on the matter means that the absolute best case scenario here is that the final decision has not yet been made.

Cheers,

Paul.

Well, as much as I like to give CO Revenue Mgmt a hard time, it is true that the "last seats" are the money seats.

You don't discount the last seats for business travelers with no flexibility. You just can't.

But, of course, there is more to it than that. And the fact is no configuration is set in stone.

The funniest thing to me is that whenever anyone brings up E+, the example that is immediately trotted out is the decade-old failure of AA's MRTC.

Without getting into any unnecessary detail about that, I suggest a closer look at B6. After they reduced their density (fairly considerably) they improved their profitability. The success of B6 in this regard is a significant blow to the oft-used canard that airline travel is nothing but a pure commodity and nobody cares about anything but price.

B6 is virtually never the cheapest out of NYC, is flown primarily by presumably unsavvy kettles, and yet flies at an LF virtually copmarable to CO's (without, I might add, ever overselling any flights, which is impressive).

So this tells us that, in this age of the internet, of easy information, of greater, more widespread sophistication deeper throughout the travel ranks, people do not necessarily treat travel as a pure commodity.

Of course, those who continue to advance that argument are usually those whose product is little more than a pure commodity.

Given them the minimum, and your customers will only give you their minimum in return.

When will CO learn that there are never any winners in the race to the bottom?

That's unfortunate. Adopting the uncompetitive UA model on this one, I see.

That they are keeping "Global Services" suggests that the MP name is in the lead right now.
25/50/75/100K or 30/60/90/120P based on what they have stated.

I'll also suggest that the 75-100K folks on UA will benefit from receiving CR1s starting in 2011 and a higher priority for upgrades than 1Ps starting in 2012. That is an upgrade for them and the equivalent for CO folks - CR1s for 75K+ - is also a benefit.

For the true road warriors - 150K or more - the benefits of increased CR1s is also a benefit for UA folk and the SWUs to go with that are also a nice benefit for CO folks.

It is not all doom and gloom for everyone, though I can certainly see how the UA folks who just make 1K - particularly if by segments - are losing out with these changes.

The "best of both worlds"...as the hammer starts to fall...still not one whisper about E+...

+1. I feel the same way, but that has already been too much to worry for the merging FF program. I think the routes stay the same, search engine would stay the same, but changing the aircrafts with the routes...I am really not sure. I believe MP members would be furious for the hard product from CO.

The current system is "14-months" with the status being good until the end of Feb?

If so, then in a way this only hurts those who will not achieve status, or requalify for the same level, for the following year. But, at the same time it will help those who qualified with less competition for upgrade space or preferred seating during the month of Feb...

If I understand this correctly, it is probably a little advantageous for CO to do this since they will be helping those who actually qualified for the status a bit.

The US SWUS for CPs have fare class restrictions. From reading the forum over the years, it seems their experience is that the difference between the lowest available fare and the lowest eligible fare is generally quite significant, and they get burned many many times by booking the higher fare and then never seeing the upgrade inventory released.

Similar results on the DL side of the fence as well.

Pretty much. This is not an issue whatsoever if you requalify, and it only hit is by a month if you don't.

Historically, the Feb. 28 of next year rules came into play when it would take weeks to credit items (some partners took a month or more). Now that most crediting is within a few days, and mileage not posting is even less common (watch me have one now that I said this!), the month is more than adequate to make up for not being able to post everything in time.

Besides, in the grand scheme of things, we have bigger fish to fry than worrying about a month of status for someone who fails to requalify.

These upgrades are eligible for all fares except S, T, K, L and G in all BusinessFirst markets.


I assume CO will need to recode their fares to suit this schema. in the CO world, S isn't necessarily the lowest, and G is actually quite high (on some routes).

I wish there was a hybrid - i.e 4 SWU no restrictions or 6 with restrictions.
Trying to use this, or give it away will be a problem.

Welcome to alphabet soup

I'm a little surprised that Chase didn't make some changes to the card to knock the fee down for PPlat in the future. I was just about to apply, but knowing that I'd be socked with the large fee next year gives me pause.

Also, a big thumbs down to the fare limits on the SWUs.