My thoughts exactly, onepassaddict! Those of us in the west who liked CO and felt abandoned after the abandonment of DEN were able to turn to the combination of HP and CO. I know I have been quite happy and have had good luck taking advantage of the mutual upgrade availability with HP. If I end up in coach on HP on a regular basis, I may give up the PHX connection from DEN and spend much more time on F9! Or even, perish the thought, a return to UA.

A carefull reading of the pamphlet that came with my 2000 elite packet reveals the following:
" ....On flights operated by America West Airlines.....you can upgrade at check-in within two hours of your flight departure".
Does this mean that if I have a Continental ticket and the plane is HP, I'm stuck with the 2 hour rule?
If so, this will be very messy, with people holding CO tickets calling CO for upgrades only to be told no. It would be a recipe for real confusion and bad customer relations.I have sent an e-mail to someone at CO who should know the correct answer. I'll post the response I get.

Vulcan:

YES it does. If it's an HP operater flight, the 2-hr at check-in rule is in effect.

Even if it's a CO flight number, if the flight is a code-share operated by HP, there are NO advanced upgrades.

Bringing this thread back up to the top...

I wrote my letters today to Gordon, Mark, and Steve. Hope you all have written yours.

I was at the America West club this afternoon, and inquired about the change, the agent I talked to said that she didn't have any "official" information about the change, but thought it might have to do with Continental's A-F class division of F/C seats, where HP makes all seats available in F class.

Platinum members have the opportunity to redeem an EasyPass award to the Middle East (Tel Aviv) from North America for 120,000 miles. This is for a coach class ticket, first and business are not available and all travel must be completed by 2.28.2001.

Per what Old Gold mentioned above, it would seem to follow: indeed, it could be that America West has been irked by the lack of upgrade availability for its members on CO (due to CO's restrictions on F via A seats), while HP offers a wide open F option.

Ultimately I could see that CO is culpable for the HP change. The new HP policy might seem to put things on par in the mind of HP.

I wouldn't doubt that NW and CO have gone a round or two about the restriction of F seats via A seats on CO (NW opens most, if not all, the F seats for upgrades of all types--easy, no A seats with which to hassle).

I'll bet that NW will finally upgrade its first class product, and use this as justification for a more restrictive policy on F seats.

Perhaps NW can get CO to mitigate its restrictiveness on some of CO's routes: e.g., EWR to LAX, often no F seats will be available at all for elites, none released prior to day of departure, and all of the A seats sell out--sure CO should make the money, but on such routes elite upgrades are tantamount to "if we don't think we can sell the seat." Would be nice if CO would open up just a few F seats for upgrade, no matter the route. One of my top picks for a change to OnePass/CO, just behind the inane 30-day-maybe upgrade for international flights.



[This message has been edited by JeffLewis2 (edited 02-22-2000).]

The 2000 NW Elite manual says that NW will begin restricting first class seats mid-year. It's a bit distressing (I'm a NW Platinum) because NW tends to configure their planes with fewer FC seats than CO. (ex - the CO 757's have 24 FC seats, NW has 14).