But, you're missing the point! The fact is that these FC seats were easily available for Plats two years ago. Golds started to find themselves in the back after EUA was implemented, and post-9/11, Plats are finding themselves more and more in the coveted middle seat. The fact is, there has been a clear and identifiable detioration in elite perks on CO in the last two years.

I'd stack UA's route structure (not necessarily their quality of service) against CO, NW, HP combined! The fact is, CO has major gaps in it's service coverage that must be plugged by partners if it's going to compete with the Big Two!

Again, you're missing the point! It's 5 months prior to the flight, and FC is wide open! There's a planeload of A seats available if I'm willing cough up $2300. But, as par for the course, the F bucket is 0. CO advertises reward seats and upgrades that simply don't exist!

If they want to limit FC rewards to airport availability only, that's fine. It's their product, and they have the right to market it any way they want. But don't advertise rewards and 5 day elite upgrades that simply don't exist! That's fraud!!!

Been there...done that...got the T-shirt! That exact scenario played out a year ago on a return flight from HKG. CO had my miles, but I got to sit in back from EWR to LAX, while they were handing out free upgrades to Plats. Regardless of status (I was Gold at the time), I feel miles should trump status on an elite upgrade, especially when CO had already deducted my miles.

But, once again, this problem would be solved if CO would simply make a reasonable number of FC seats available for rewards and upgrades prior to flight. Most of these problems are directly caused by CO holding back 100% availablity until 2 hours prior to flight.

Other airlines don't do this, at least not to this degree! I've got a flight in 2 weeks that has been consistently "A9 D0 F0" while a NW flight leaving at the same time and to the same destination has been consistently "A9 D9 F9." Now, is it really necessary for CO to hold back 100% of it's FC inventory? Do they seriously expect to fill 100% of their FC cabin with full-fare pax?

Look, I realize CO is a business, and it wouldn't make any sense for them to give away what they can sell for a premium price. But, more and more, CO has been taking a "dog in the manger" attitude! Look at all the BF seats going out empty or given to employees, while loyal elites willing to burn miles are sitting in the Cattle Car! That's not my idea of how to treat your best customers!



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"Read my lips! No more benefit cuts!"...Gordon Bethune

I still say...for 200K miles, put me in FC from here to NY. Hi folks - I know I haven't been around much lately. Real life has interfered with travelling this year. I hope to get back in the swing of things come May.

I alway try my best to keep that from happening! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif Welcome back, ClassicalGal! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif


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"Read my lips! No more benefit cuts!"...Gordon Bethune

SemiElite, are you flying UAL now? Out of SNA or LAX? If so, how are you finding the service?

hateUAL,

Actually, I'm in airline limbo now. I comped to UA PremEx last year, but wasted it when I was seduced by CO's mileage bonanza and (at that time) relatively generous free domestic elite upgrades.

But after a serious decline in upgrades post-9/11, I'm reevaluating my options again. I flew a NW flight to SIN...got a great deal in Jan. ($538). But, since then fares have been outrageous, so I haven't been flying. I do have one flight booked in two weeks, but that was purchased using an unused CO ticket that would have expired in four days.

Right now, I'm considering 3 airline options:

1. UA--E+ Coach, best system coverage, and best coverage to SYD (partner NZ is excellent), a semi-regular destination. But although intl. policies are easier than CO, they still do have some fare restrictions (similar to CO, pre-HoKeY). So-so airline.
2. AA--MRTC Coach, best for intl. upgrades (any pub. fare), and overall better airline than UA, but AA metal doesn't fly into SYD. Partner QF flights will give status miles, but can't upgrade, and QF Economy is distinctly inferior to UA partner, NZ.
3. Fly NW/HP domestic, but UA or AA international. Thanks to HoKeY and miserable 31" pitch seats in Economy, flying CO internationally is no longer an option.

As I've got an unused UA ticket to SYD, my next flight there will be on UA. I'll probably decide what to do airline-wise after that flight.

Whatever the airline, I fly out of SNA whenever the fare is competitive. It's a 5-10 minute cab ride to SNA, while LAX is a 45 minute drive (non-rush hour) from here, and then I have to deal with the shuttle from Remote Lot B.

That's another plus for UA...UA Express SNA-LAX. You fly over the traffic jams and get another 1000 miles for the RT.

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"Read my lips! No more benefit cuts!"...Gordon Bethune

I had to go through the same evaluation last year. Some comments on the below:

It is way better than CO in International travel on coach fare for two reasons (other than the E+ seats which are not on all UA aircraft as yet). One, the lowest upgradeable fares are usually much lower than CO at any time. For example EWR-HKG was $925 on UA and $1400+ on CO two months out when I made my trip. Second, UA has inventory available for upgrades and awards months in advance and so it is possible to plan ahead and get confirmed upgrades. By the time CO denies upgrades you are locked in with the fare and unable to do anything else about it. The biggest problem with UA which brings down the average is inconsistency in service. They have some really good people and some really bad people.

After being comped to AA Platinum, I immediately did about 10k+ miles on AA last year. With every one of those legs, ran into so much bad on-the-ground-service when things didn't go right including a non-voluntary bump that was misrepresented as a "security matter" without any compensation (later admitted to by customer service as an overbooked situation) that I swore off of it. Their back-office staff is much better than their ground staff who are pathetic compared even to UA. Still after an exchange with their customer service, I am giving them a try again next month. Their upgrade policies are really enticing for international travel.

If I can live with AA, I intend to split my travel to the mid-tiers on both UA and AA (platinum and PremEx) rather than put all my eggs in one basket. I usually have enough miles to not need the free system-wide upgrades (I can hear the CO folks wondering what the heck are those!) given to their top tiers in either UA or AA.

Flew the business class deal to Oz via Qantas last December, had booked the seats almost 10 months in advance. Luckily, we received the upgrade-- and specific seat assignments-- for the domestic LAX to CLE portion of the flight.

A few months later, we mysteriously lost those seat assignments, as we were returned to being waitlisted. No agents or supervisors could explain, or could help, despite repeated calls.

Comes the day of the flight, and we were never ever again upgraded. There were, however, two seats in first that went unclaimed. I guess you could say an easy 'courtesy' was withheld.

That was when I still though being Platinum meant something; won't be making that mistake (or Continental status) again soon.

At the bottom is an excerpt of a mail I wrote CO last year for which I received two complimentary cocktail/headphone coupons in return as pacifiers. That was the beginning of the end of my business with CO and I kept my promise at the end of the letter. The result:

2002 Elite Status: Platinum
2002 Elite Mileage Balance: 0
2002 Elite Segments: 0

2002 Elite status miles on competitor: 33663

Excerpt from letter written to CO:

I booked a ticket via a travel agency for a trip for travel starting June 13 using Northwest for EWR-LGW (via Detroit) and Continental for MXP-EWR on June 21 (copy of itinerary attached). The tickets were on Y fare on Northwest and H fare on Continental. A couple of days later, I called OnePass to see if I could get a mileage upgrade. I was told that an upgrade was available for the Continental flight. As there was not enough time to get the upgrade by mail (Note to FT: I had been issued paper tickets so needed new tickets issued) before I left, I paid for the pre-paid pickup via a credit card. I was told that I should pick up the ticket at least 4 hours before the flight for which the upgrade was issued. 20k miles were deducted from my OnePass account. There was no upgrade available for the Northwest flight and I was asked to call back later. I called back subsequently and this time I was told an upgrade was available and was again issued an upgrade with another pre-paid charge of $75. A mileage of 10K (because of Y fare) was deducted from my OnePass account. So far so good.

I picked up the Northwest upgrade certificate at Newark airport on June 13 and traveled to Detroit. At Detroit, Northwest refused to honor the certificate at first saying someone had booked incorrectly. I called up OnePass and they verified that the upgrade was indeed done correctly and that Northwest should honor it. It appeared that Northwest had overbooked and simply bumped me off the flight. After being insistent, I did get an upgrade from Northwest grudgingly. Disappointing service from Northwest, your airline partner, but at least Continental service was helpful.

Unfortunately, Continental was not helpful on the return leg. I went to the Continental counter in Milan Malpensa airport on the 20th of June to pickup the upgrade certificate that was pre-paid. I was told I had no booking on Business First. When I spoke to the local OnePass customer service over the phone, I was told that Business First was full (which turned out to a false statement) and that my certificate was for June 15 for which I was flagged as a no-show (which turned out to be a false statement as well since I had no ticket/reservation to upgrade on the 15th). (Note to FT: According to my itinerary that they knew, I wouldn't even be in Milan on the 15th) It seems that whoever had issued the certificate had put the date of June 15th as the issue date for the certificate.

I called OnePass in the US from Milan and spoke with a representative. She stated the same as the Milan representative but could not explain why the certificate had been issued as a pre-paid if there was no upgrade available. I asked to speak with a supervisor. The supervisor I talked to, Ms. Deborah Miller from Tampa, FL was hardly helpful but rather lectured me on how upgrades were never available for summer transatlantic flights making me feel as if I was a freeloader on their flights for insisting that they honor the agreement Continental had made. She pretty much denied that the upgrade had been issued for this flight although she could not explain why the upgrade certificate had been issued and the pre-paid charges made. Instead, she falsely stated that all Business First seats were booked so there was no way she could accommodate me even if they had made a mistake. She graciously offered to redeposit the 20k miles to my account “for no charge”! This has been done but the $75 for this leg has not been credited to me so far.

Ms. H, all I wanted to get was an upgrade to Business Class using the mileages as Continental advertises. If I had simply been told they were not available because of capacity controls at the time I asked the Continental ticketing, I would have understood but to provide this upgrade and then be treated this way is simply not acceptable. On further enquiries, it appears that there are subjective decisions being made in these upgrades. I no longer feel that you deserve my loyalty if you have this type of discrimination.

Venk, a perfect example of the HoKeY Pokey! And ronin, I guess you got to do the Reward Rumba! Sheesh! Is this any way for an airline to treat its best customers?

BTW venk, thanks for the reassurances on UA. I flew UA back in the late 80's, and made Premier. And I was quite happy with them. But that was many years prior to the Summer of Hell. So, after all the horror stories I've heard, I guess I've been a little scary. And CO has some distinct advantages (free domestic upgrades) that I hate to give up, even if UA and AA are superior in every other respect.

But calling about a flight to SYD, I mentioned my concerns about sitting in a 31" pitch seat for 15 hours. Even as a non-status flier, she offered me bulkhead seats. Even as a Platinum, I get static when requesting them from CO agents!!!

Also, I understand that even if you don't have an upgradeable fare on UA, and there are still empty seats in BC at the airport, the gate agents will frequently let you upgrade using miles. A CO agent would get fired for that! Give the seat to an employee, or let it fly empty! After all, that is CO's "premium product"!!! Funny, I always thought that CO's top tier elites were their "premium product"!!!

And, even the CO apologists will have to admit, UA's route system is absolutely awesome!!! Doesn't seem there is anyplace they don't go! And if they don't go there, their partners do!!!

The only thing I disagree with you on is that I believe that we are generally better off putting all our eggs in one basket...top tier on one airline rather than mid-tier on two. Better to reign in hell, than to serve in heaven! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif Besides, I may very well not fly enough to make mid-tier on two airlines.

As far as inconsistency in service, I've found that lots of times on CO. And at least with UA/AA elite telephone lines I'll get a real elite agent, not just a different light on the switchboard.

OTOH, I was very pleasantly surprised on my first NW flight in many years, LAX-NAR-SIN. After hearing about all the trashy planes they were flying, I found quite new aircraft. But maybe that was because I was flying long distance transpac flights...dunno. And although they are as stingy with operational upgrades as CO, they did give me great Economy seats on every segment...exit row aisle. The seat was narrow, but more leg room than WBC! And the food and service was overall better than CO.

Hey, maybe CO isn't quite as great as they think they are...or they want us to believe...ya think???

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"Read my lips! No more benefit cuts!"...Gordon Bethune

[This message has been edited by SemiElite (edited 03-24-2002).]

Talking about NW transpacific, time for another of my stories of woe with CO/NW.

Back in January 2001, I had bought a fairly expensive BF ticket between EWR and NRT on CO with connecting flights on UA business class from NRT-SIN as there was no CO flight there and NW was completely booked. This was even though UA would have been cheaper to fly business class all the way. At that time I was foolishly loyal to CO and wanted to be in CO BF.

Everything went fine until the return leg when the CO flight NRT-EWR was canceled due to mechanical problems. This was while I was enroute from SIN to NRT. When I landed in NRT, I and two of my colleagues were met by a CO representative who escorted us to put us into a NW flight to JFK(!) in business class. I guess from that distance JFK and EWR looked close enough. I had a limo arranged for me to pick up from EWR and had no idea how I was going to get back from JFK to New Jersey. My GSM mobile wouldn't work in Japan, and of course there was no phone on board the NW flight.

I talked to the staff who promised me that they would call the limo company to arrange to pick me up from JFK (a lie). I gave them the details and phone number for the limo company. We were also told that a CO representative would meet us on landing at JFK (another lie).

Now imagine having paid dearly for BF and being seated in a 10+ year old 747 with tattered cloth upholstery and creaking airframe and no empower in the seats. Apparently they didn't load enough business class food either when they placed us there because the rubber chicken we got was inedible and I refused to eat it even though I was starving.

And, of course, when we landed at JFK, we were on our own. No one to meet us. The NW staff hadn't even been told of our situation. Called the limo company and they said no one had called them and since the flight was canceled they had not sent anyone and didn't have any car to send to JFK at such short notice. Calling CO, we were told to go to CO counter and collect a voucher for public transport (huh? what public transport?). Anyway, there is no CO counter at JFK and after another call it was resolved that there was an Alitalia counter that was shared by CO but there was no CO representative there.

Luckily, one of my colleagues managed to get her limo company to send a car withing 45 minutes and we paid a lot of money for that one car to drop us off at various places in New Jersey.

I got a $450 voucher from CO after complaining and also a letter stating that I was not owed any money on the flight because I had traveled back on the same class of service! Hmmmm, CO BF isn't a premium product when it suits them, eh?

Anyway, this is how CO treated three of their high-fare paying BF customers. The other two didn't bother to complain and got nothing for their troubles. I see them traveling UA now. I foolishly went on to make platinum in 2001 despite this and other annoyances.

I have a virgin 2002 Platinum card that will never see a check-in counter.

And they say UA sucks. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

That's interesting, and a bit surprising! I thought CO's policy was to treat their hi-rev flyers like royalty, and dump on their discount flyers, like myself. Apparently, they're dumping on all of us!!!

But then, they don't have to treat their customers decently, they're an "award-winning" airline!!!

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"Read my lips! No more benefit cuts!"...Gordon Bethune

In case you are interested, the upgrades never cleared.

You might want to see my trip report at
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum81/HTML/002711.html

I am in the same situation on a QF reward this fall. What fare code do they look for? F or E? The IAH-LAX-IAH segs are F7/F4, but E0.

posted by venk
"After being comped to AA Platinum, I immediately did about 10k+ miles on AA last year. With every one of those legs, ran into so much bad on-the-ground-service when things didn't go right including a non-voluntary bump that was misrepresented as a "security matter" without any compensation (later admitted to by customer service as an overbooked situation) that I swore off of it".
Venk i know this is off topic but i had I think the same sitution with nw at buf last sunday I arrived at the nw counter just over 25min before depature and they refused to check me in saying i was too late.What was suspicious was that I checked the itn loads the night before and it was zero's across the board.How did u end up proving that they did that or did aa just admit it?
--howie

[This message has been edited by stockmanjr (edited 04-16-2002).]

I wrote them a letter later asking why I was bumped and I received a written reply with an apology that the flight was overbooked. Since I forced them on that day to put me on a BA flight to get back to the US, I didn't pursue the compensation issue.