What you say is besically true but they REALLY limit the available seats (I am talking 0-2 seats/flight and its mostly 0). The kicker to all this is the hotels and resorts offer mostly high priced non-refundable and/or non-canc rates so it is VERY difficult to put well planned trip. One would expect the big brain-trust at CO is well aware of these obvious facts.

MisterNice

Maybe I'm just staying at the wrong places in Hawaii (or the right ones?), but the only time I've come across non-refundable, non-changable room rates are when they are deeply discounted.

There seems to be a mindset among some folks that they deserve all the premium perks and best service while paying the lowest fares and prices. Complaining about not getting free upgrades, not being treated like a VIP, etc.

There is one sure way to get that kind of treatment, including guaranteed first class seats or suites in hotels: pay for it! There are premium products out there that companies are willing to sell you. If you're counting on free perks, though, you have to be at least somewhat understanding when you don't always get the pampered treatment.

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CO plat, UA prem; Marriott plat, Hyatt plat, Hilton gold, Starwood gold, Fairmont gold; Avis select, Hertz 5-star, all the others base level... ;)

Yawwwn.

DJ what you seem to persistently misunderstand or refuse to understand is that the reason why many of us complain about not getting those perks is because those perks are promised but then not delivered.

All of us are rational to some degree here so that if such promises were not made to us in exchange for our money and patronage we would not have a goofy foot to stand on in sqauwking about the things we sometimes do, and speaking from my point of view, I wouldn't.

But the fact that CO promises what it does but then does not deliver or starts adversely modifying or renegging on what it commits to giving is obviously not going unnoticed, at least by those of us who have the wherewithal to see the situation for what it is.

[This message has been edited by Jim Phillips (edited Jan 24, 2004).]

yawn

I've been wondering about the perception that standard award availability is better on partner carriers than on CO metal. If this is true, isn't this bad for CO because more OnePass awards will be redeemed on partners rather than on CO? Does CO have to pay their partner carrier the 1-2 cents per mile for the redemption? It seems to me that they would want to capture this revenue as long as it was more than discount fares in that market.

2 of those companies that you speak of are SQ and FS. They don't promise ug and suites and not deliver. CO is the king of that.
CO has the signs all over NY promising free unlimited ug, when called on it they deny. Heck with that. NW will deliver on the UG a whole lot more than CO.

Oh, c'mon. I don't hear ya complaining that the 1-2-free promotions are misleading because the free tickets are capacity controlled, or the AA "I got to East St. Louis for $58" billboards are wrong because they don't list the dates, times, and restrictions for those fares.

We've had this argument a thousand times. CO elite FT members have reported their upgrade success rates in specific "survey" threads in this forum. Silvers seemed to be automatically upgraded on about 3 out of 4 flights, and platinums were at, like, 90-95%. I think that's good - if you can do better on another airline that goes the places you want, maybe that should be your choice.

The EUA does not run as advertised. Lots of UG are battlefield. What happened to the 5 day out? The AA adverts have small print that give the deatails of the promo to East St. Louis for $58. I could care less about the AA 2 for 1.

My EUA experiences with CO haven't been bad. Once I got got Plat, I got upgraded 100% of the time, including several ticket purchases that were same-day or inside the silver upgrade window.

I wouldn't disagree that there are unpublished heuristics behind EUA at the 5/3/1 marks. Anecdotally it woud appear that in many cases, inventory release decisions are being made based on the list for upgrades (i.e., if there are are Plats on high fares, upgrade them, otherwise hold upgrades...).

Ultimately, however, being upgraded in advance is a bit of a convience thing. To be honest, while I consider upgrades *the* perk for my normally all-domestic flying, I'd be just as happy if they didn't run anything until midnight on the day of departure (clearly, as a Platinum, that's almost always going to be to my advantage).

One cannot fault CO trying to give its space-available upgrades to what it considers its most important customers.

[disclaimer: I have only flown two segments on CO since the EQM flap was announced last year, but I did get upgraded well out on them.]

Steve

Referencing the CO Star thread, I am both a CO Plat as well as CO Star. What does that do to me as it concerns the pecking order?

Even so since March of last year I have not been clearing upgrades without some kind of battle with the systems and sometimes even the front line people (claiming I am on the waitlist when they don't even bother to verify with the computer that I am, only to be told at the Pres Club or elsewhere that I am no where on the such a list).

I have said before it does not pay to have to work so hard to be a customer of CO.

CO does not deliver what it promises to.

End of story.

[This message has been edited by Jim Phillips (edited Jan 25, 2004).]

What you really mean is that EUA doesn't run the way you want. The existence of "lots" of battlefield upgrades does not mean that EUA is broken. EUA is simply an allocation and notification process for awarding elite upgrades.

BTW - as someone who has pondered the AA billboards at the Tarrytown train station on many occasions, I can tell you confidently that they don't give details that would satisfy you http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif.

If CO advertises that EUA will run 5 3 and 1 day out, than do that, not 3 hours before on day of flight. Maybe we are seeing different AA signs. I see the ones in GCT that say NY to ORD for 98 dollars. If you read the fine print it says one way etc..... Its possible that we ride the same train sometimes, how about that.

I thought airlines weren't allowed to advertise one way fares for when the term and conditions required round trip purchase? Did this change or did I just dream about the hubbub about that deceptive marketing practice?

Sadly, nothing. I think CO Star is only an inflight service initiative. Maybe it'll become a ground service initiative at some point.
Yup, I agree that this is one of the most aggravating shortcomings in gate agent service.
Actually, I'm not sure if CO promises hassle free delivery of benefits. Regardless, if not for the unlimited domestic first class upgrades, I'd be outta here.
Actually, your quest to trim the ranks of CO Elites is neverending. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I think EUA does run at 5/3/1 days out. It’s just that CO zeros out the F upgrade inventory so there are no available F seats to upgrade to at 5/3/1 days. Then maybe a few hours before the flight they convert more and more of the "for sale" F seats to "upgrade" F seats and people start to see upgrades. If they really did allow all plats to be moved up to F (using up all the "for sale" seats) 5 days out (and there is usually enough plats to take up a good part of the F cabin), then basically you are saying that nobody can buy a F seat on CO within 5 days of departure because all the plats have them for free!

I don’t think there is anything broken about EUA, its just somewhat sneaky marketing by CO, and it doesnt run how people would like! Who can blame them, you see sneaky marketing all the time, and not just with the airlines.

I have to say I agree with DJ_Iceman above, people expect to be upgraded 5 days out on their $250 transcon fare. If you want to be sure that you will be in F, pay for it!