I have not flown CO very long, but it may not continue. My route is Florida to/from NY. I chose CO due to the domestic upgrades, whice were virtually guaranteed the fourth quarter of last year for a Gold such as myself. I posted earlier that CO just started "capacity controlling" the flights such that seats did not dump to F until the night before the flight. Fine, UEA still ran in the intended order.

Now, the last straw for me. The seats are not dumping to F until the day of the flight. Hence, no UEA and, instead, a mad dash to the airport since time of check-in allegedly trumps Elite status for check-in wait-listing (regardless of what the rules say). Worse, my theory is that some of these seats NEVER get to F, but are instead used to accomedate coach passanges put in first class due to CO's overselling of coach.

The above, combined with pretzels instead of my beloved "cold plate" on my last flight, may have put me over the top.

Could someone point me in the direction of another carrier for the NY/Florida market with the next best domestic upgrade policy (I beleive CO is (was) the best)? Any explaination of what their upgrade policy is would be doubley helpful. Thank you.


[This message has been edited by Joey (edited 02-11-2002).]

based upon the markets you mention, US or DL are really your only choices. you might want to visit their boards to see if their upgrade programs work any better. i know DL is more restrictive (L and U fares are ineligible), but you might want to ask these questions over there. those who fly those carriers more can better answer your questions. welcom to the club. there are a few of us who have seriously cut back on our CO flying as well...




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Bad Gordon!

No Freddie for you!

Joey: unfortunately, it is not just the FL/NY segments that they are holding back the F seats... it seems to be quite common these days.

It would be helpful to know if you are based in FL or NY. I assume FL, but whereabouts? Central, South, Southwest...

I used to fly US, but most of the **** routes were served out of LGA by MetroJet... ugh... that sucked, no FC cabin, no food, etc... dirt cheap prices, but that's all. I would suspect that they folded most of those routes into connecting service via CLT or PIT. And, US's upgrade policy was never anything to write home about.

DL serves many FL routes out of LGA, and MCO from EWR. But, you'll be stuck w/ the curse of LUser fares and be riding the back of the bus.

So, I'd say your only real option is unfortunately CO, or NW if you want to connect on DC9s via MEM.

JetBlue is big in the FL-NY corridor!

I hear that starting in March, they are going to run the EUA again 3 hours prior to departure

..

care to share the source of that rumor? or just leave it hanging out there without merit?

BTW (by the way), don't forget to spell out all abbreviations. there are certain people on here (mostly yanks) who are "abbreviation-challenged"....

Even so, if they dump the A's to F two hours before departure what good is it?

I've planned or flown about 40K on carriers other than continental since I was burned by this last month (see http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum20/HTML/004225.html )

It appears to me that the release occurs at 3 hours. I also think that airport upgrades are processed between 2 and 3 hours before flight, even though the rules state 2 hours.

I hope the 3 hour EUA rumor is true. That should pretty much solve the problem. Until then, CO isn't first on my list.

To get back to the original topic, AA is another choice between Florida and New York, at least if you want to fly to/through MIA. Lots of connections through there as well.

I wouldn't wish MIA on anyone. But YMMV.