Will They Match Status
 

First of all, I'm not an extremely frequent flier. If I stick with one airline all year, I could make the lower tier. That hasn't been the case in the past though. In fact, I have 3 flights planned on 3 different airlines coming up over the 2nd half of the year...not too good for racking up miles.

Having said that, I was wondering if CO would match AA gold. I plan to do the AA challenge using an international trip which would give me the 10K+ needed. Will CO give me silver elite status? Should I even worry about it or stick with AA in the future? They both (Delta too) have convenient low-priced routes for my most frequent travel, so I'm focusing on choosing among those.

Thanks for your suggestions!

The experts here will be very helpful. I too am an infrequent (only leisure) flyer, but with the knowledge I've picked up from these folks, I've made CO Silver 2 years and am about to make Gold. I fly exclusively from Newark so its easy to stick with CO. Where will you fly from in FL?

I fly mainly out of FLL but have also used MIA and PBI on occasion. What has been your experience as CO Silver with respect to upgrades, reward travel, etc? Congrats on your (future) Gold status!

OnePass will match status based on MILES FLOWN. If you got Gold status, but only flew 20K miles for the year, I doubt that they would even give you their silver status. You now have to hand-carry your statement and FF card to the nearest CO ticket office so your documents can be reviewed. I heard that a sampling of last years comps showed that about 25% of the statements they received as "proof of status" were cut-and-pasted (forged) documents.

1passguy,

I appreciate the info. With a mileage run or 2 (thanks to everybody who gave a suggestion) and a Virgin codeshare out of Miami, I can get there this year on CO.

Question...If anybody has experience with both AA and CO, would the extra effort and expense be worth it over AA?

They will match status, but my suggestion is, unless you can make it worth your while, I would hold out on the comp. Instead, I would do the Trial Silver offer mentioned in another post below.

Once they comp you, they won't do it again, so I'd wait until January 2003 to go for the comp since it will be valid through 2/03.

P.S. - they don't just comp based on miles - Mr. Travlr just got comped since he is Elite with United. He barely flew United this year, but will fly enough on CO to keep his elite status for next year.