well not so quickly they wont, if till now they were flying CO and crediting CO then they have no CR!s, so 1st they would need to match their CO Plat to UA 1K, then they would have to fly 10k actual miles and credit them to UA, then theyd have to wait till the 1st Tues of the new month passes and UA does its sweep before ever seeing any CR1s in their acct

so its nothing IMO to lose sleep over, also keep in mind its only good for a flight into/outof JFK so no connections onward from there = if NYC isnt the final stop or the starting point its probably a non-starter and from the ps flights Ive been on there were always a few ** in biz , and if a person is heading to Europe why go via JFK when they can grab a non-stop LH flight from most places or LX in some cases

I think this is no longer the case. So far this year I have flown >10k EQMs, but I've had <5k on UA metal and I still received my quarterly CR1s. This was definitely not what I expected, and was a nice surprise.

Please can you explain (or at least link to the UA board post that explained it)?

All of the CO plats (myself included) who are matching to 1k and choosing United for their primary SWU/CR1 earning should see the CR1s in April. The email clearly stated that all qualifying activity for the year will count (so all of my 17k BIS miles on CO should get me the 2CR1s for 1Q11) and any SWUs/CR1s will be deposited into the members acct.

That was precisely my earlier point.... that you would have to fly 10K BIS miles on UA metal in order to qualify for UA CR1s... Read down several posts... others have been told (by MP CS) that is NOT the case...

The OP had is generally correct.

If you had less than 100k in 2010, and you are generally flying CO in 2011, then having CO as your primary account makes sense (but there probably is very little difference). By the time you start earning SWUs in 2011, the programs likely will be merged, and even if they aren't merged, you could use the SWU on CO flights.

If you had more than 100k in 2010, it might make sense to make UA your primary account because of the chance to earn regional upgrades quarterly if flying more than 10k that quarter. Unless you are a UA 1k, you do not earn these quarterly awards.

At least, that is my simplified interpretation of a 10-page thread on UA.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...tus-tools.html

Plats with >100k EQM in 2010 will get 1k status on their UA account whether they pick that as their primary account or not... and I will actually be surprised if the quarterly CR1s are forfeited simply because one picks CO as primary instead of UA.

My best guess is (assuming CO 100k Plats will get them) that they will either deposit these extra CR1s to your UA account... or post them to your CO account once these are introduced on CO.

Great summary, thanks!

...so then, following this logic, if I currently accrue all my miles on OnePass and flew <100k last year but I primarily anticipate flying UA this year over CO (but will have a few CO flights) should I switch to make UA my primary?

Note: those UA flights I anticipate will almost all exclusively be PS flights (LAX-JFK) and as upgrades are verboten on them, I wonder if it even matters at all at the end of the day...?

I think you can use CR1s on the PS flights... so picking UA could be to your advantages if you hit 75k reasonably early in 2011.... otherwise it should make no significant difference.

Okay that makes a bit more sense now. I did 180k last year, 95% on CO, although I am taking significantly more UA flights this year because I can get the upgrades. I'm not desperate for the CR1s, since I can generally get upgraded anyway, but I definitely want the (CO) SWUs for use towards the end of year, or possibly early 2012.

So I'm thinking I should just go and register with CO?

CR1s CAN be used to upgrade p.s. flights. No UDU on them, though.

If you think there is any chance that you would earn 200K this year, it may be wise NOT to combine them... Fly 100K credited to CO and get 6 CO SWU's, fly the other 100K credited to UA and get 6 UA SWU's. If you combine them, you would be losing (2) SWUs, as 200K on one carrier alone this year would net only a total of 10, and not 12.

You should probably be just fine picking UA because we were told that they are working on making the SWUs/CR1s valid on both airlines. Perhaps as early as mid year.

However, things can go wrong... so CO looks like the safe bet for you.

Thanks for the advice, guys.

But if I have no plans to hit 75k this year (more like 50k), then I guess I'll ask the 2nd part of my question: does it even matter picking one over the other?