I have flown NW's F product and do share your opinion on them. However, I have also flown UA's domestic F product and IMHO it is on par with CO's. Moreover, UA�s true F product (international and p.s.) give BF quite a spanking.

Been on an ExpressJet flight recently? I have except this time the logo was a gargantuan bluish �U� and I found myself sitting in F. Best part is that if the upgrade failed to clear, I�d be sitting in E+. I find myself in partial agreement with you. While CO is superior to some of the majors, I have found UA's F product at times to be superior to CO (especially if it�s an �express� flight!).But the point that I read out of this was that the opposite was occurring. CO's Y product is of poorer quality than B6 (which I agree with) but costs more. I think this is what has people - why would I want to pay MORE for LESS? Previously this answer has been, "well, at least I have a shot at an upgrade" but now with that choice gone, I think many are asking the question and not finding an answer.For me UA's E+ blows both CO's regional, domestic and international Y product out of the water. Not only does UA BLOCK THE SEAT NEXT TO ME (which as others have mention would be a ZERO cost for CO to do), they also have a more agreeable (again in my situation) international upgrade policy.

My point: CO's great and they certainly are the best at somethings - but they are not the best at everything. Should any business choose to rest on their laurels and fail to realize the need to constantly improve their product they will be in for choppy waters.

In this case, CO needs to wake up to how their Y is continuing to slip further and further behind their competitors.

The widebodies are all used for international flights, there are only a a few flights between IAH and EWR that are widebodies and they are primarily aircraft rotations between IAH and EWR for international flights...

-Vincent

YES, YES, YES, YES, YES!

I never said Continental was the best, I said they were among the best - UA was left out of my comparisons because on many levels they offers a comparable product to Continental - or in some cases excedes.

-Vincent

We are getting off topic (again - what else is new), the OP wanted to know how the upgrade system worked and why he didnt get an upgrade right away. I am sure by now we have answered that question.

-Vincent

Ah-ha! I asked Victor almost the exact same question on Saturday during the last DO!

Look, OnePass is a revenue center - not an expense center for CO. This is due to the large contracts CO (and all the others) have with "partners" for the sale of mileage. Case and point: AMEX paid DL $500,000,000.00 (that's half a billion!) for SkyMiles to give to their card holders; when UA went into BK one of the only divisions of the company turning a profit was Mileage Plus; or look at AreoPlan which is it's own company now! If mileage rewards are done properly than the airlines can reap rewards from them.

However, should the opposite occur (the airlines merrily keep minting miles and don't offer an increase in freebies to go along with them) folks are going start realizing the currency has been devalued. Reward rates will increase, especially for �rule-bustin� F seats and mileage holders will become increasingly frustrated. As such, the demand for "partner" mileage buying will decline and CO will no longer be able to harvest the revenue they once enjoyed from selling those valuable OnePass miles.

They will kill the goose laying the golden eggs.

But alas, what know I?

The short answer is that the upgrade system doesn't work unless your prepared to needlessly throw hundereds of dollars at a coach ticket.

It's only early March. How fed up do you think elites are going to be with the carrot-and-stick tactic by the end of the year?

I hope CO is ready to sacrifice a good portion of their revenue stream for 2007 because there is no reason to fly them after that for alot of people.

Bad, short sighted, and out-of-touch executive leadership in my opinon. For what it's worth.

Ah, the sweet voices of reason and realism. This forum does have some people that can see the forest.

Funny, that in itself is a comment. It's too bad that you can dish out the nasty comments but can't take them.
So either the GA goes against the rules, or she doesn't know what she is doing, so in typical CO style, she makes up an answer/policy.

All part of the some of the best training in the industry. And oh, don't forget, great people stand behind great products and all the rest of the propaganda that gets mindlessly regurgitated...

The published policy includes a big disclaimer - subject to availability
. No airline, whether its CO, NW, UA, US or AA is going to block out its entire FC cabin to accomodate free upgrades when seats can be sold to the market. What happens when they AC has 12FC seats and 18 top tiers waiting for their upgrade? Obviously, someone is going to lose out. You can't please everyone. Only Midwest offers a FC guarantee where everyone is upgraded because the entire AC is FC (saver service excepted).

At the DO, CO stated there are targets it wants to achieve for upgrades at each tier level. Obviously these are not being met for alot of customers, and CO needs to figure out how to better balance its benefits with its need for revenue.

I have to agree with J Edward re: UA. It would cost CO nothing to automatically block the middle seat when a Platinum makes their seat selection. That seat should remain blocked and unavailable until 30 minutes before departure, and can only be assigned at the gate by a gate agent (who must manually unblock it) if it's specifically needed to accomodate customers without seat assignments or standbys - and only if those customers cannot be seated elsewhere.

On the other hand, CO has a stated policy of maximizing as much revenue from each aircraft as possible - so I don't see them introducing an E+ cabin and removing even a single seat from coach if they don't have to. However, I would like to see some research done on improving the seat itself. The coach seats are hard, unflexible, and I find the bottom cushions far too short for comfort. I believe one of the reasons the cushioning and padding of the seat is so thin, is to improve the pitch. A thicker seat would take more room and either reduce pitch to 29-30", or require the removal of some seats to keep it at 30-31".

The real issue was why the upgrades have become so much more difficult to acquire.

I believe the discussion has been enlightening and informative.

The bottom line is the flying 75,000 miles a year on CO does not have the same value it once did. Perhaps this change in strategy is necessary, as you assert, perhaps it is a mistake, as I have asserted.

Whatever the case, CO needs to address the quality of its coach cabin, especially on its trans-con flights.

Perhaps CO could re-configure some of its 737's to create more seat pitch in coach for these trans-con flights.

In any case, something has to be done to retain the 75,000 mile-a-year flyers who now feel that their loyalty is no longer valued (a warm sandwich and plastic pillow are not enough).

And that something will have to come in improvements in space in the coach cabin.

Agree, we're getting a little bit off topic here. But I haven't gotten a good answer why my upgrade didn't clear.

The "they keep the seats for revenue purposes" answer is not a valid reason if you ask me. They have clearly posted how the complimentary upgrade system works, but they have failed to honor it.

Just for curiosity, is there a possibility that a high fare paying Gold was given an upgrade at the 3-day window, while I, in this case a low-fare paying Plat, has yet to receive one?

According to the program rules, yes: only if that Gold was flying on a Y fare. The only way a customer can jump ahead of a higher tier is by paying full fare. Within each tier, customers are ranked by fares class from H down to L, with date of purchase being the tiebreaker.

Like I said, wait till December and see how many are absolutely foaming at the mouth at the policy and ready to jump ship. There is an iceberg ahead for CO. Unless they are willing to sacrifice all the 'vanilla' elites.

I doubt they are ready to do that. But, airline execs certainly know how to run a biz into the ground. So, let's wait and see who is proven right.

There's no violation or contradiction in the policy, if you see the word I bolded for you. You may not agree with the policy, and I don't either, but the word is there.