I started flying with continental a little over a month ago, and I will most likely be flying every week for the rest of the year from CLE-EWR

I somehow managed to talk the onepass manager to upgrade me to silver so that I could move through the lines faster with my co-workers, but I will most likely not see any upgrades at all as the flight is practically full of CO Silver Elites.

I will be about 10 segments short of Gold by the end of the year, and wanted to know if anyone had any experience talking to OnePass about extending the qualification to someone who has shown weekly repeat business? I managed to pull this with Marriott Rewards this year as I was staying every week, and was just 1 night short of gold status before the year ended!

Any help/suggestions would be appreciated.

I believe 10 segments might be a bit too much for a comp "push up" at the end of the year. Perhaps you can take a mileage run or two with a lot of segments?

I am sure you can get some other great suggestions from FTers who are much more experienced than I...

You can try flying NW via DTW or DL via CVG to double your segments (depending on the fares you buy). 5 qualifying trips like this will give you 10 extra segments. You will still get the benefits of Silver Elite on both airlines.

I did this to obtain Silver when I first became Elite. I realized I was close and started connecting so that I could double my segments and miles. My last trip was through BWI and EWR on the way to ATL (return as well - and that was still when the ATRs were still in use). Plus, it is usually cheaper that the approximately $1100 CO charges for the direct flight to NYC from CLE.

Any tips on getting comped to silver? I too just started flying CO and need to book a few more flights till the end of the year, any chance I might get comped based on booked flights?

Call and ask to talk to a manager. I had been flying discounters for nearly an entire year, and offered to mail in my statements. Eventually I was told that I was entered into a promotion whereby if I bought 3 middle fair coach tickets by august 31st, they'd give me status. I dunno if I got lucky or not...

CLE -> EWR roundtrip is $160.... I usually try to book a class B fair to bring the price up to nearly $300 so I can expense a ticket to almost anywhere and have it be around the same price as my normal roundtrip if I book in advance. I'm not on an endless budget project.

10 segments might be too close. I was 6K miles away from Golde one year and they did not give it to me, but I was 1K short of Silver another year and they did give it to me....without asking.

I suppose to narrow the scope of my question, I am more concerned if they would allow me to use a "rolling year" during my first year of the program. I just started flying in the middle of July, and I will have flown nearly every week. It will be extremely frustrating if I am not allowed to either continue my path towards gold, or be upgraded to gold based on my loyalt.

Most likely if I'm told that there is nothing they can do, I will just move to a different rewards program. Probably move to AA where I can do one of their challenges to get status relatively quickly.

I'd ask them (CO). I sent an email a few weeks ago asking whether they would for me - I have 20k so far this year & 10k already booked. My next trip is leisure & has a tight connection in LA to Southwest (don't ask) - I asked if they'd give me status in advance of that so I can have a shot at carry-on & a seat near the front. They did. I was Silver from 1999-Feb, 2003, don't know if that mattered.

IMHO, They give silver to anyone that walks off the street, but it's worth almost nothing. Why? Because they give silver to anyone that walks off the street.........

Remember, if they give it to you without earning it, it ain't worth much.


There are 6 guys in my office , 2 that have not flown in 18 months that were comped Silver, you'll get it, but if you're looking for more than the blue carpet and an occasional UG on a leisure route, you'll be disappointed.

Strongly disagree. I fly out of EWR...was Gold 2 years ago, but silver these past two years (on my way to Gold again this year). Yes, Gold is significantly better than Silver, but Silver is still worth something.

This year, I've got 8 upgrades on 12 total flights and last year I had 13 upgrades out of 18 total flights.

Granted, I fly a lot of off-peak hours, but I still wouldn't say that Silver is worth almost nothing. Plus, on my two EWR->MCO flights each year, getting to board first, before the 150 six-year-olds crying to get to Disney world, is priceless.

Also, early morning elite check-in around the crowds at EWR is worth its weight in gold.

They gave me silver right off the bat without a problem. I was never status with continental, just told the manager that I had flown discounters for about 50 weeks striaght.

My question was in regards to gold, as silver is relatively worthless on my flights to Cleveland from Newark. I will NEVER get an upgrade during the times that I fly. I will have flown roughly 25 weeks in a row by the time the new year comes, but I will not have enough segments to make gold. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. MR are not for me as I spend barely enough time at home as is!!!!

Man, you sound like almost exactly the kind of flyer CO is looking for. Someone willing to pay almost double the deeply discouted fare (OK, they really want the one willing to pay the full FC fare ).

With that in mind, it seems perverse that with the amount of flying you do you get stuck with us who fly deeply discouted tickets and also earn Silver (hey, I do a lot of leisure travel and the little business travel I do is for the state, so it's also stricktly deeply discounted advance purchase).

And to your credit again, you are not willing to try to find $200 trans-cons where CO does not make money, but you rack up miles / segments to move up to Gold.

Perhaps you are an anomaly, but it seems that something is broken with the CO system ..... Hey, why is everyone laughing? What did I say?

EmailKid

FWIW, I was 5k and 8 segs. short of Gold last year, I e-mailed onepass and asked them to review my account, as more than 50% of my flights were K,H and Y etc.

They said ok after a few days wait. I have been told it's a bit of a one time deal, so expect to do 50k/60 points to keep it!

So, write to them and note that you are not a discount flyer and ask them to review your account.