All I want IS a bigger seat
 

:D

...or at least more room.

Although I'm not a lawyer, I did give myself an "out" by saying it's up to determine the value or lack thereof in a particular suite of products offered by any given airline.

Some interesting replies posted so far, Thanks.

I wanted to clarify a few points about my particular travel habits:

(a) Last year, I spent 278 hours airborne. That's 35 8-hour days, almost all on weekdays. I'm self-employed and all of my work is done on computer. Unfortunately, I cannot use one of those great little laptops that folds into matchbook size. Economy seating @ 31" pitch = no work = no pay. For this reason I do assign a high value to a bigger seat.

(b) That said, I also can't afford to purchase first-class seating for those 278 hours. So I need to try to maximize my value from every $ spent. I will [and do] purchase fares in higher buckets to help my upgrade chances, but economy days (becoming more frequent) are lost days. A couple extra inches in eco does make all the difference.

(c) I personally, assign very little value in just about everything else. I'm not saying anything bad AT ALL about others' travel preferences. It's simply that for me personally, pillows, blankets, DirectTV, movies, food, free headphones and dancing girls at check in add no value to my ability to get the Job done. Even free wireless at P-Clubs, albeit a great perk, doesn't allow me to further my productivity.

(d) While power is a nice feature, I simply purchased 5 spare laptop batteries to keep me going en route (value $1000). In-seat power would be a great fallback plan for me those times when I can't get all batteries charged on a short ground attack.

To address a couple of repsonses:

(1) $$$ vs Miles for elite qualification. I think all things equal, it's safe to assume a 100K miler spends more than a 25K flyer.

Quote: From your analysis they're more expensive and yet they're also losing less money than the others

(2) Actually, I didn't say CO's transcons were more expensive. As expected, I found sample bookings on Jetblue were $50 less, DL's about the same, and AA/UA to be about $30 more.

I'm not so sure that AA is as great as you make it out to be.

This is most likely true. I think I was a little stunned, however, because my perception was that OP was the cat's meow. Again, for me, those SWU's are an awfully big carrot to dangle. I get one hooplah trip a year on pleasure with my wife. Convincing her we need to pony up $1800 additional to get upgrades is not good for domestic tranquility. I get the stick :D

Lastly, I had a tendency to focus moreso on AA becuase both AA and CO have vowed to NOT start low-cost spinoffs. DL and UA operate low-costers on some routes I run which does influence my opinion. With AA seeming to lock horns with CO presently, I think it's important for OP to have a good look at AA's offerings. Like I said, if you live in EWR, JFK, ORD, IAH, DFW or other AA/CO hub city, the choice might be easy. Otherwise, it's worth a good look.


Sorry, NW offers companion upgrade certs for domestic use only. They do not offer SWU's applicable to Int'l routes.

With respect to seating, I did do it on my own spreadsheet. I obtained data from each airlines' website, but seatguru is a good place to start. DL/NW/CO all offer about 37-38" on domestic first (with little chance of CO BF anymore). AA and UA offer about 50" in bus class and bunches in FC when operating big jets still available on domestic routes.....It's way too lengthy to post all of the alternatives though.

I think CO is still riding of the highs of yesteryear, and could continue to do so for some time. People at FT probably constitute the top 1% of overall people in terms of knowledge of frequent flier programs. Yet as a platinum elite, in SFO, with a fairly good knowledge of the terrible upgrade rates for platinums out of this city - I still find it hard to leave CO. I find it hard to "start over". I find it hard to think about learning another programs "rules and regulations". I continue to like my 125% milesage bonus, and continue to make justifications to myself why it would just be easier to stay with CO a little longer.

Think, then, about people who are not in the top 1% of "sophiticates" at FF programs. How must they feel? Pretty hard for them to conceptualize a move, I bet. I think it will take a considerable amount of time for defections away from CO to occur because, due to the factors above and others, there is a tremendous intangible cost to leaving. So CO can probably ride their past highs for some time longer, even though they arguably are in the "middle to the bottom" of the pack for services for top tier elites (and really for any fliers).

So CO, with its crummy 31" pitch, lousy upgrade percentages, no in seat power, narrowbodies only and so forth...they can continue IMO to maintain good loads for some future period. But just as hard as it is to lose people, its hard to get them back.

JFK is not a hub for UA. Also UA gives (6) systemwide upgrades each year for their top elite members that can be used on cheap fares. Pricing out ORD-CDG on UA for mid summer (July) UA came back with $1002.79 all segments SWU upgradeable (save CDG-LHR on BMI).

Would this change some things in your assesment?

This issue has been discussed many times before, and will not work - the main reason being the tax ramifications of connecting the benefit to the amount of dollars spent - not to mention the chance you will alienate the 90% of your customers who pay a variety of fares. You seem pretty bent on excluding benefits from 'riff raff' elites who don't pay top dollar. Why the prejudice? USAirways tried to exclude Elite membership from all customers who didnt pay full fare and the public backlash had them seeing stars. What looks good on paper doesn't always work in the real world.

The upgrade system already awards the seat to members of a particular status tier in the order of fare class, which is a perfectly fair indicator of who paid what for their ticket, and thus who is entitled to first crack at the seat based on their ongoing overall loyalty to the carrier.

If you give the upgrade to a Silver who spent more than a Platinum, then why bother having elite tiers at all? Why not just rank all customers in this 'database' you propose and award upgrades to the people who spent the most on their ticket, then grant elite access to the next 20 or so customers according to what they spent per ticket....everyone else gets nothing.

The current system works fine...CO just needs to stop the secret tinkering in the background and be upfront and clear with its customers so we know what to expect.

In a word.....YES.

I thought UA gave SWU's to 1K's, but couldn't find it in the manual. Thanks.

Thought it might.

Your post is very interesting, hope you get a chance to rework the UA numbers. UA (and CO) fliers might find it more relevant with everything calculated correctly.

I stated this before, but 10-12 years ago, CO tried all coach seating with CO Lite, and upgrades only for Y and H fares. Neither of these worked. Also, if FC continues to get decreased (out of sync with NW and others), then the FF will eventually go elsewhere.

I think companies--and not just airlines--count on this. How many of us would not change ISP because it involves a new email address and the attendant hassles of all the changes that would involve with everyone who has our address and every online account we have...UGH. That made me stay with AOL longer then I should have.

I also felt this way about CO but have bit the bullet and switched to NW this year. Why should I stick with a program that doesn't serve my needs any longer just because I know the rules.

If we don't vote with our feet and wallets management will never get the message.

what is an SWU? seat with upgrade????

I am sure the airlines have put a LOT of thought into this -- and have left the system as is -- because the number of "low rev" Plats is minimal. Why would you think that airlines that consider cutting the number of olives in the salad (metaphorical, I know that's the AA story) would just be sitting back, year after year, letting their bottom line be pillaged by hordes of people getting Platinum?

Let's take FT as an example. 50,000 users. Many aren't top tier on airlines at all! Many are, but only a fairly small percentage are "$2,999 Plats." And I think it's very reasonable to say that FT is skewed towards the "$2,999 Plat" by an order of magnitude over the world in general.

You may think that the folks at CO are too stupid to have looked at things like absolute revenue, but I don't.

Steve

SWU = System Wide Upgrade.

They don't get talked about on the CO board that often. Essentially, they are certificates (electronic or paper) that allow a one-way, one-class upgrade from a purchased economy fare, on any flight operated system wide (domestic or int'l).

I believe that you have to be on an H+ or higher fare to make use of the SWU. Also, I think that the fare requirements differ between United's regions.

Not true. H+ fares are required for international upgrades using mileage. SWUs are valid on most international fares except Z (discounted business) and cheap S, T, K, L and G economy fares. On Travelocity a ORD-CDG WKXSN8E fare for departure 3/28/05, which is upgradeable with an SWU, prices out at $543 plus taxes.

I don't think it is that hard to track $ at all. As a matter of fact, I have read on FT many times things like FAs giving different service to those who paid full fare versus those who were "only" upgraded. The information is available in the computer systems of the airlines. Getting it out may be problematic, but it is there.

The question is how good is CO's computer system? Does CO actually analyze flyers by $ paid per flight? If so, does CO offer special comps (higher elite status, perhaps) based on this information?

If anyone has any information on these questions, please let us know.

Thanks.

The UA SWUs can't be used on the most deeply discounted fares (S and T would be two common excluded fares) transatlantically or transpacifically. This can raise the fare to use them ($20ish) sometimes very little to sometimes much more significantly (several hundred). Perhaps oversimplifying it....you need a W or higher fare....and W is nowhere near full fare economy...it is rather near the bottom of the midrange economy fares... perhaps the equivalent to the CO V fare.

I'm pretty sure that UA SWU are valid on most fares to hawaii...including the cheapies. Now of course it is nowhere near a CO BF cabin on UA to Hawaii. UA first to hawaii resembles a decent transcon first experience.

One thing that I don't recall being factored in was the fact that all UA elites have at worst E+ seating systemwide. That is a nice thing when you consider being cramped in Y on a flight to Hawaii or Europe on CO. This is especially important for lower tier elites...because on CO we know where they're sitting when they don't happen to be in an RJ,

You also get international lounge access starting at 50K miles per year.....on CO/NW/DL you don't get free lounge access on a Y interational fare until you are 'skyteam elite plus'...which on CO is 75K. Might not be a big thing... unless you are gold.