I travel to BKK from NYC. How would I get mileage from NRT to BKK on AA? Cathay seems to be very strict on awarding miles. I assume the fares are very high.

bocastephen covered it pretty well. I don't hate them- life is too short- but I took my business elsewhere.

I was CO Silver for about 4 years except 2002, when I was Gold, but I fly mostly discount fares even on business. My husband and I travel to Europe twice a year and that's discount fares, too, of course.

A bit early to tell how I like AA. I've done one flight to India on AA/BA and it was fine- that was enough to get me Platinum status on the Platinum Challenge. It was fine for a Coach product. Husband and I are leaving for London April 1,also discounted Coach. I may be going back to London on business the following week- in Business Class. Guess what airline will get THAT flight. I'll probably go back to India this year, too. Just goes to show the marketing wonks at CO that ignoring the bargain-hunters isn't always good policy.

Another "zinger" was CO's change to the President's Club rating sturcture. I let my membership expire figuring that they waived the enrollment fee for Silvers, anyway. Oops. They "enhanced" that provision away and I would have had to pay $50 on top of the membership fee. I got PriorityPass instead.

You see, once someone flies their 4 or 5 $185 transcons and gets their status, it becomes an entitlement to all the freebees Continental should offer. God forbid that their free meal on on an $185 FC upgrade not meet their expectations, or that the headsets don't fit their ear as expected, or they dont get that second or third whiskey before takeoff, or that their jacket doesn't get hung in the closet fast enough because the FA is pouring that 2nd or third whiskey. Worse yet, the hate flows if that free upgrade on the next $187 transcon isn't available. But the best yet, was the lawsuit someone wanted to file because the wheelchair wasn't at the door promptly, and that person wasn't able to board first on the connecting flight. Go figure. It's the attitude of entitlement.

Don't feed the trolls.

Well at least you can't say he is isn't contributing to the dialog http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/rolleyes.gif -- which IMHO was pretty productive, informative and free of knee-jerk bashing/defending right up until that little gem.

i dont hate them But I find trying to book a ticket 8 months out at 25k impossible and that is why I hate them. I actually like flying on CO but refuse to spend 50k for aa FF ticket.

peace
billyb

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www.primecolorphoto.com

When the truth hits a nerve, the word troll always manages to show up

You are forgetting the proliferation of JungleJet's.

CO is using these gawd aweful pieces of crap on routes that should have and used to have mainline A/C. There is NO reasonable explaination for CO to be using JungleJets's on DCA-EWR, CLE-ORD or CLE-DFW to name a few.

Gordon made a major point in the book (I refuse to believe that he wrote it) that Ferguson made a tremendous mistake with CALite. Now, Gordon has done the same thing, only he calls it ExpressJet.

If I have to take a transcon and CO is charging $185 then why shouldn't I expect to be treated as they've advertised I will be? Don't blame the customer for purchasing the product that CO chooses to sell and for expecting to receive the benefits that CO advertises it will extend to me.

There's no reason to believe that the ranks of CO elites are filled with people who did nothing but super-cheap mileage runs. Hence, any argument that "it shouldn't matter what CO does because the people complaining didn't pay much of anything for their tickets" is fallacious.

I take myself as an example. I'd likely to consider myself pretty savvy. And I have been flying a lot (this year I've got 61k EQM so far). But, like many people, work has driven a large portion of this flying. How much have I spent total this year? About $17,000. Does that sound like a set of $185 transcons? I didn't think so.

Steve

CalFlyBoi,

There has been an overall reduction in the number of FC seats purely on the basis of aircraft type changes. Let me give you an example.

When I first started flying CO around 1998/9, almost all my flights between IAH and LAX/SFO were on DC10 aircraft and my flights from EWR to LAX/SFO were on 757s with 24 seats. Not true anymore

The poor DC10s are now gone...very few of these flights are flown on widebodies anymore - in fact, for my April trip, only one flight the whole day was a 764 - everything else was a 737 or 757.

The 757-300 aircraft (and I believe more of these will be bought soon, also with 12 seats upfront) are showing up everywhere. I saw this aircraft pop up on the LAX/IAH portion of my trip when I was searching options - it only took me 2 seconds to decide not to choose that flight. The dinner flight from FLL to IAH that I used to fly all the time the last couple years is now a 757-300 and I remember the FC cabin full of business customers (usually the same faces every week), many of whom are stuck in coach now until this flight becomes a 739 later in May. Delta runs 764s FLL/ATL all the time and is it any wonder why that airline has almost 90% of the south Florida business market? Their FC cabin is packed with business people and IT workers flying in and out of FLL - CO has made no inroads to become competitive in this market.

With so many flights being operated on 737 300, 500, and 700 series aircraft (including many trans and mid-con trips), the number of upgradable seats/flight is being reduced. On NW, every single one of their DC9 and A319/320 aircraft has 16 seats and I have been upgraded on every single one of my flight segments with them, usually 7-9 days in advance. I never have to guess or worry when flying NW - just sit back, go with the flow, and let things happen the way they are suppose to. NW delivers as advertised.

Flying CO these days has become like walking around potholes - I have to watch my fare class, my operating airline, my aircraft type, etc....too many complications. If the mileage requirement for Plat is raised to 100,000, I am either off to NW or AA and I will feel very sorry for leaving what was a great airline that used to treat me so well. I am so tired of CO treating its non full Y customers like cheap bums or freeloaders who want something for nothing. Hello! We are not the enemy!

Maybe when Gordon was a little boy and had nightmares about a boogeyman in his closet, the boogeyman he imagined was a discount fare leisure traveler, wearing an Aloha shirt, sitting in an upgraded FC seat, and sipping a free "Jack and Coke". Could that be the source of his hostility to the "cheapies" now?

I hope the new CO management recognizes you get more with a carrot than a stick and makes positive changes that benefit everyone - especially given the competitive atmosphere has been changing from reductions to improvements at other carriers. It would make CO appear quite silly to continue program reductions in the face of recent decisions by NW, DL, UA and AA.

CO lost my business because of it's short-sighted international upgrade policies and I'd be embarrassed to admit my annual expenditures on airline tickets-- but suffice to say I don' fit the "$185 profile" by a longshot-- less so than anyone you could imagine. My travel is exclusively in premium cabins and well over 100,000 miles a year. AA is very happy and lucky to have me as a customer-- all thanks to the CO braintrust who decided that using my earned miles was not "part of the program."

It's very simple...all you newbies reading listen up....CO has the worst standard award availability of the U.S. airline frequent flyer programs. That is more than enough reason to avoid OnePass. And for the CO apologists, please don't quote figures about how many award seats CO "gave away" last year or last month. Those figures are totals that include standard and the twice-the-mileage-required awards; CO does not publish standard award redemption (only) figures. I wonder why?

If you are a newbie and contemplating making CO your airline of choice and OnePass your program of choice, and if award redemption at standard levels is important to you, I strongly urge you to re-consider. But don't take my word (alone) for it. Do yourself two favors:
1. Search and read the Flyertalk posts for information on award redemption on CO.
2. Run some award checks on both the CO site and then over on the AA site.

I'm very certain you will reach the same conclusion about OnePass and CO that I did...award availability is simply atrocious.

DCA-EWR I can see. IAD-IAH I can't. Never in hell. The RJs and OnePass' fraudulent advertising of standard award availability are reason enough to leave CO. All the other bullets bocastephen provided are just gravy.

I just went on to AA.com and wanted to compare search features to CO.com. No one ever talks about but I love how nice and easy it is to use CO.com's flight search. It is easy, fast and you can hold a flight for 24 hours. So AA.com looks nice but try looking for a flight with clear pricing and flight times and it is definitely not easy. So I tried comparing prices going to FL from NYC and COs pricing was $380 to $519 on AA....CO has a great website hands down!!!