Hi all:

I did a search on "upgrade" and found about 400 topics. Most of which were outdated. So forgive me if this has been discussed, but I have several questions about OnePass for Silver and Gold elites. My wife and I are both Premier and Premier Executive on United (equivalent to Silver and Gold in OnePass).

After this past summer and years of frustration on UAL, we are thinking of changing our choice of carriers. Our most important criteria for flying an airline is getting upgrades and good service. After reading about Continental's unlimitied confirmed upgrades can you tell me the following:

1) How often do you get a confirmed upgrade when making a reservation?

2) How much of a difference does it make to be a Silver, Gold, or Platinum (especially when requesting upgrades)?

3) If you are not confirmed how often do you get waitlisted and how often do you clear the waitlist?

4) How are the flights to Hawaii? Are these easily upgradeable (from other posts it sounds like it is difficult)?

5) Overall how do you rate Continental's service? Compare to other airlines like AA, DL, and UA?

My wife and I really appreciate your feedback. We should be making the switch after the new year and are planning ahead.

Thanks again!

Rico

Rico,

These answers are for DOMESTIC flights only. I have no firsthand experience with International Upgrades.

1A) On Full Fare tix, Plats and Golds can upgrade at time of ticketing. Silvers at 48hrs to flight time.

1B) On discount tix, Plats can upgrade at 72hrs, Golds at 48hrs and Silvers at Midnight on the day of the flight. These upgrades are available IF and ONLY if F class is available. CO breaks it F/C inventory into A class (revenue) and F class (Upgrade).

2) On some routes and days, Plat and Gold makes a BIG difference. On other routes (Hub to Hub or Coast to Coast for example), F seats rarely open up. Making no difference with regards to advance confirmed upgrades.

3) CO does not currently have an advanced waitlist for upgrades. If F class is not available, you either continue to call or wait until you arrive at the airport to be put on the waitlist. This happens to me about 20% of the time and I have only flown coach twice this year (50 Segments).

4) Hawaii counts as an International Destination. (I know, CO has a funny atlas). Hawaii is difficult to upgrade if you are not elite. I flew CO to Hawaii in May. When I peeked at the manifest, at least 1 member of each couple was an elite.

5) I LOVE CO's service. IMHO it far surpasses AA and DL. I have no experience with UA.

Keep in mind that from Chicago, your options to the West Coast are limited. CLE does not have the service to the West Coast that EWR and IAH have. Also, some of the ORD/MDW-CLE flights are on RJ's.

I would suggest that you try looking at some sample itineraries in ITN and look at the city pairs and connecting times. When doing this, keep in mind that a lot of CO elites avoid EWR like the plague. Due to restricted airspace, EWR is very susceptible to weather delays.

Yes, there are tons of threads about upgrades.

CameraGuy did a good job of posting the details. If you want people's success rates, I'd suggest the following thread:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum20/HTML/001055.html

Rico:
Cameraguy did a good job answering all your questions - I'm just chiming in with an opinion...

I'm Silver on CO, and have great success upgrading.

However I fly out of BDL (Hartford), which is a much smaller market. There have been many times where FC had only a couple of folks in it.

Flying out of Chicago, you've got a larger population base, so there are bound to be more competition for the upgrades. I'd be willing to bet that Silvers are not as successful out there.

Another thing to keep in mind is tht you can earn CO status miles flying NW codeshares and vice-versa.

Frankly, NW's service is nowhere near what I've enjoyed on CO.

HOWEVER, Elites on CO are at a bit of a disadvantage upgrading on NW and vice-versa. Frankly, I've never gotten an upgrade on NW without some sort of argument. I've gotten confirmed upgrades and seat assignments on the phone, only to be told at the gate I wasn't.

CO's service is excellent. My boss knows that if I can't fly CO, I'm not travelling.

I hope this helps.

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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

Actually Jon, Chicago appears to me to be a good market for upgrades on CO, since it's a hub for both UA and AA, I've seen empty seats in F/C flying to/from ORD and MDW as often as some minor markets. (like IAH-TUS) Can't say how it compares to BDL, since I've only flown Jungle Jets and ATR's there.

BDL has 1 flight to each hub per day on a full size jet. Needless to say, those are the flights I try to fly whenever possible! Only missed an upgrade on one flight in 2 years.

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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

Thank you very much for all of your replies, and CameraGuy who gave me an outstanding answer to all of my questions - Thanks!

I am going to start looking at the routes out of ORD and MDW and see how the availibility of F seats are.

One thing I have noticed between looking at posts on this board and talking to colleagues is that CO's service is probably one of the best of the big doemstic carriers. That is very attractive - compelling enough to start over with them.

Thanks again for all your help.

Perhaps when my wife and I make the switch we can meet up with some of you and buy all of you a few rounds of drinks.

Rico

BTW - Does CO treat upgrades with miles the same way it does as any other upgrade. To clarify, would it make any difference (or is it even possible) if I used miles to upgrade at the time of reservation, or do I still have to wait for the specified time period?

Using miles does allow you to confirm your upgrade well in advance of the 72-hour period. However, the same restrictions apply in terms of F seats versus A seats. In fact, CO releases inventory from A to F at various times, but they do not disclose it in advance. So you may not be able to get the upgrade when you book, but you may have better success down the road. In any event, I usually just take my chances when the window opens up for most east coast flights, but use miles to confirm an upgrade in advance for trans-con.

By the way, if you're using miles, CO has to issue you an upgrade certificate. And if you're within three weeks (or so) of the date of travel, you'll have to pay an extra fee for expedited delivery and overnight shipping. But the good news is that CO agents are notoriously bad about collecting the certificates...I have one that I have used three times because the agents don't bother to ask for it.

Rico:
You may use miles to upgrade at any time where there is an "A" seat available in inventory. Be sure to allow at least 2 weeks' notice - otherwise they'll have to FedEx you the certificates for $35(?)

Domestically, it's 5,000 miles each way on a "Y" fare. Double that for discounted fares.

You can check out the chart here:
http://www.onepass.com/asp/charts.asp?airlinecode=CO

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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

My experience has been that the mileage upgrades came from the "F" bucket, although as a Platinum I seldom feel the need to use mileage to upgrade.

Jon,

Your statement may correct when dealing with Y fares only (I don't know for sure, as a Plat I can upgrade Y fares at time of ticketing).

When dealing with any discounted fare, the upgrade comes from the F inventory.

I upgraded a Monday morning transcon (ugh) with miles and the upgrade absolutely came from the F category, as there was only one F seat available on all the flights that morning, but many A seats. The F seat was gone when I checked a couple hours later, but the A inventory was the same. The flight was seven weeks away at that point.

[This message has been edited by Kitty Hawk (edited 10-11-2000).]

OOPS!!!! Correct - the upgrade needs to come from the "F" bucket.

What was I thinking!


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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

Thanks again, all.

You have all been very helpful and it sounds like there are some difference with CO's and UA's programs, but none of which are incredibly bothersome.

With respect to the auto upgrades, I am not sure if this is necessarily a bad thing if you follow the posts on UA's board and all the employee class discussions!

On a more serious note, UA just cancelled its ORD-HNL nonstop service, which means Mrs. Rico and I will be forced to connect in SFO or LAX everytime we go there (which is quite often, fortunately). So this is a great reason to switch and start flying the service from IAH and experience this great service which I have read so much about.

Thanks again for all your help everyone.


CO . . . here we come!

One more difference to note about Hawaii upgrades is that CO offers its BusinessFirst product on all mainland-Hawaii routes, whereas most other carriers only offer the regular domestic first class or special "Hawaii configuration" service. BusinessFirst is primarily used on long-haul international routes, so to be able to get it when going to Hawaii is a major benefit of flying CO.

As far as availability, I sometimes look at the upgrade inventory to Hawaii on ITN, and it appears that they release all remaining revenue seats around midnight on the day of the flight. From IAH, I almost always see some upgrade seats on the day of the flight. Since this presumably means that all passengers on the upgrade waitlist have already been cleared, I think this means that there's an excellent chance of getting an upgrade (for mileage redemption) on this route, even if you are not able to confirm it at the time of ticketing.