Today I completed flight segments #90 and #91. Platinum at last. What I really wanted to say is that I am one of the folks who was part of the OA match program from a year ago. I was a 1K with United for several years. Because of the many comments I read on various FT posts I decided to give Continental a try. I was highly frustrated with United. Well to make a long story short, I am very happy with the switch. Continental has lived up to its billing and has made me a happy flyer. I think their customer service both in the air and on the ground is second to none. I will drop Continental a note but wanted to thank all of you for the comments, suggestions, and ideas that convinced me to switch. It was a move I am very happy to have made. Happy flying.

RJ: Congrats, Welcome to the platinum crowd.

RJ: Seconds to Boomer's message. I just completed segments 103-104.

I hit 75k miles with Continental next week or so. Looking forward to finally hitting platinum. I also requalified for UAL premier last week. Not so thrilled with that - premier doesn't seem to get me much at all, but since I live in chicago, without premier o'hare is hopeless. With premier its only somewhat hopeless.

I requalified for Platinum about a month ago, and since my company gets a big discount on UA flights,I though I would give it a try. I had been comped by UA to Premier Executive a few months ago, so I thought a comparison was in order. Other than the food being slightly better in coach (and that's not a fair comparision, since I have only flown CO coach twice this year)...there was not much good in being PE. So I board ahead of the masses, I do that in CO. At least at CO there is a chance of being ungraded--with no coupons or miles being deducted . On my UA flights I noticed a few empty seats in First--no FA came back to upgrade anyone . I think I will stick with CO.

Hello, Randy! Good to hear you made Platinum.

I'm literally about 350 miles from making it myself. That'll happen next Sunday (on NW, unfortunately).

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Michael
OnePass Platinum

I'll hit Platinum Friday on my return HPN-CLE-SFO. Yippee! I didn't expect to make it this year with the slowdown in business travel I experienced this summer, but the trip to AMS in September plus a few transcon RTs put me over the top.

This makes 2 1/2 happy years since switching to CO after being comped to Gold Elite...a narrow escape from "the Borg of the airline world" (as described on one of the other forums) ... proves that resistance is not futile.

[This message has been edited by dgolds (edited 11-15-1999).]

We should have a platinum qualifying or requalifying party this week.

I'll hit 75,000 for the year(to requalify) on Sunday.

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I certainly fly right, but I try not to work too hard

I hit platinum for next year sometime in June. I've had excellent luck with the new Nortwest perks until yesterday, when I got stuck in Manchester. Oh well.

Platinum still doesn't carry any weight with Continental for travel to Europe, as I just bought some tickets for New Years Eve.

On our return flight, all of the upgrade eligble seats are gone. What happened to the thirty day time frame for upgrades?

Does anyone have more info on the European upgrade process. They inform me that we're at the top of the waitlist to use 20,000 mile economy ticket upgrades.

I'm not an Elite myself, but one of the guys whose travel arrangements I handle will re-qualify for Platinum this coming Sunday as well...SFO-IAH. So this must be a pretty popular week. And his only additional scheduled CO travel this year is IAH-ORD (one-way, because the return is in 1/1/00).

As to the availability to upgrade on the flight from Europe, are you sure the seats are gone or have there not been any allocated? A couple months ago, I called to hold 1st class reward travel to Europe for next June for the person I mentioned above. The trip was being scheduled in conjunction with a Meditteranean cruise, so he wasn't very flexible with his travel dates. I kept being told that on each date I chose, all the 1st class reward seats were gone. I have a little too much experience in dealing with these things to believe that to be true since I was calling 9 months in advance, so then the actual traveler called back. Speaking to a different agent, he was told that 1st class reward travel was blocked for European travel on weekends in May and June. In fact, I specifically asked the first agent if the seats had already been taken or if they just haven't been made available. She said they had been taken!! Pretty inexcusable, IMO, that she didn't know that when this *was* the International reward desk.

So my point in posting this is you may be faced with a similar situation. While you were told the upgradeable seats are already gone, they may in fact be blocked at this time, waiting to see if they can be sold instead.