I have collected enough frequent flier miles in my life to get a pretty decent "view" of many different programs. I recently tried to book my honeymoon using miles to upgrade a purchased coach ticket to First Class.I was both surprised and disappointed to learn that Continental Airlinesmakes it VERY hard to do such a thing. They will not confirm you in theirBusinessFirst class right away, like most every other airline I know do.You must purchase your ticket, and then go on a waiting list. Their isabsolutely NO guarentee that you will be upgraded. Furthermore, if youwished to use your miles to get a free BusinessFirst ticket to Europe(100,000 miles), you cannot do that until 30 days prior to departure.Thus, planning a trip in advance using your OnePass miles is virtuallyimpossible. When I discussed this with a supervisor, she even agreed thatas a policy it is often unfair. When I called TWA and Delta, they wereable to confirm me right away if I had the miles and wanted to.

I am a relatively new frequent flyer, and have signed up with continental. I was very shocked to hear your problem. What airline do you think offers the safest travel and the best frequent flyer program? I have been a freq.fly. with United, but have experienced the worst flying nightmares anyone could ever imagine. Your help would be appreciated.

It is pretty surprising to note that Continental made a mess of your travel plans.
I have travelled in most of the major Airlines in the United States and I have by-far found Continental the best . USAir and Delta have also been pretty good.
I have never really had any problems with Continental uptill now !!

Not surprised at all to hear of MileMonitor's problem. Reference my post this section about NIP difficulties. Same problem, same policy, basically. Except I'd probably be even lower in the pecking order because I'm trying to use NIP's, and MM is redeeeming at standard levels. The wrinkle seems to be the elite issue, which when you think about it means that miles have different values depending on how you get them. For example, lots of flown miles (which make you elite) are more valuable than the same number of credit card, hotel, etc. miles. It's a factory seconds policy that CO seems to revel in--and why not? It got them a knighthood from Randy Petersen. BTW, I've heard the 30-day number tossed around, but when I tried it I was told repeatedly that I wouldn't know until 96 hours before flight time.

I, too, had problems in trying to give my son
and his new bride RT Business Class tickets to Hawaii. I made reservations 5 months ahead of departure and NEVER got
confirmation of BC seats. I was told that BC
award seats are not released until 30 days
before departure. I called exactly 30 days
before departure and there was nothing
available. I called everyday after that until
about 10 days before departure. Being totally frustrated at this point, I called the
1-800-wecare2. It should be 1-800-wedon'tcare. I then called the OnePass Service Center, explained the
frustration and problem. OnePass Service
Center then put me in touch with CO marketing and they were able to confirm
BC seats on the return trip. The real problem here is CO revenue. CO says they
want Elites to use their miles, but they really
want the revenue.

I deleted my inappropriate message.

[This message has been edited by wonderland60069 (edited 12-14-2000).]

The thread that started this: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum20/HTML/000546.html