Not so much in the minority. I am still a CO PLAT and have given 95% of my US business to NW and about 5% to DL. I haven't been on CO metal since April and just blew through 100,000 EQMs for the year. I have done all my Int'l on AF or VS. It's easy to do when you are a miles person.

To the point of some of the other posters here, CO is making plenty of money and doesn't need mine, so I think we have reached a nice place. I am in the Onepass program. Just redeemed my miles for a trip to HNL in March. I do all my flying in NW and have a 100% upgrade percentage, usually at the 5-day mark (I am sweating an U/G on Thu though), thanks to my CO PLAT status. I bought a WorldClub membership, but use the PC when I am in cities that have them (even though the WCs in MSP (C-gates, not F/G gates) and DTW put the PCs in EWR and IAH to shame).

I enjoy the New Business Class on AF to Europe, flying out of Dulles and make the single connection to Europe, versus taking the early afternoon flight to EWR to ensure that I am there in plenty of time to not miss my flight. I don't miss not getting upgraded as a Plat and I surely don't miss the barely cushioned seats on CO Y.

One day CO will improve their product to bring back the "can't pay for Y or H fare, because our travel department won't let us", but right now they don't need to and I'm not holding my breath for them to do it.

Well, this thread puts a new spin on my old complaint that in BF Continental may advertise interesting wines (sometimes) but the FA�s have no idea what they are.

I fly MAD � EWR, and we often have a good Torres or other Penedes on board but you would never know it. You mostly get the standard: �Red or White?" and when you ask what they have, the answer is a puzzled look with these really helpful details: �I think the white is French, and the red is a Shiraz from Australia.�

Aren�t they supposed to offer at least two reds and two whites???

If the staff can�t or won�t learn about the wines, CO should at least print a listing of what is on offer in the menu.

I earn elite through miles. I fly both paid J and Y internationally and redeem my miles almost exclusively for international J rewards. Three years ago, I kept almost all my paid and reward international travel on CO metal. I thought BF was the be all-end all and I had no problem flying from DCA to EWR to catch a CO international flight. At that time, many of the international carriers had not yet updated their J products.

Today, AF and KL have updated their J products and both have AVOD, comparable (some would say better, some would say worse) food, better wines, and AF has a better seat (the new KL seat is uncomfortable for sleeping, IMO). And, we can earn and burn miles on VS. So, if I have to go to LON, for example, in paid J, why should I fly up to EWR to fly BF when I can go nonstop from IAD on VS with the best J seat in the industry, unless I'm on a Z fare or whatnot? Same goes for AMS and CDG - why not fly nonstop from IAD on AF or KL? After having flown BF and J on VS, AF, EK, and KL over the past two years, I now try to redeem on partners as well, and only choose CO if the schedule works better or if there is no availability on my desired partner flights.

I don't think BF is a bad product, I just try to look at my options and make an informed decision. Over the last couple of years, this has led me to choose partner metal more than CO metal. I still fly CO internationally - in fact, I have a trip to Europe coming up next week on CO metal (my second paid int'l trip of the year on CO metal). I don't know if I'm in the minority, but I'm only Gold and don't fly as much as many people, so my decisions may not have as much effect as those of people who fly paid J to Europe/Asia twice a month and begin booking away from CO. But, in the aggregate, people with my flying patterns would have a significant impact over the long term.

Another way of looking at this is that the wine is an extremely small fraction of the cost of operating a BF aircraft. By taking a little more effort and not really affecting the cost of operating the flight that much, CO could be offering much better wines. Even though the individual bottles of wine might be more expensive, this is still an extremely cheap means of improving their product as opposed to, say, replacing all the BF seats with the next generation seats, improving IFE, or adding wireless internet capabilities -- all of which require significant downtime, probably costing the equivalent of several tens of thousands of bottles of Dom.

1 businessFirst seat is $20,000 = >200 bottles of dom at wholesale.

But the BF seat likely lasts longer than the Dom. And the seat generates revenue. According to the CO beancounters, the Dom does not.

they've never tried.

IMHO, this issue is indicative of the myriad little ways that CO is managing to cost-cut its business model around the fringes (without taking large chunks away from the product that attracts negative media attention), thinking it is coming out ahead, but is actually managing to erase the luster of flying CO.

As so many threads in this board illustrate, the great airline that once was CO is slowly being replaced by one that is merely so-so. Packed planes with tiny seats, no legroom, average service. Ever-increasing restrictions and mileage levels on award reservations. Ludicrous international upgrade policies. Intentionally hidden domestic upgrade policies crafted by a revenue department that holds several F seats until 40 minutes prior to departure. Declining upgrade rates by the company's elite-level flyers. The airline's refusal to share any meaningful data on its upgrades. Oh, all this, and fairly high prices to boot.

True, CO is mostly on-time, they don't cancel too many flights, and your luggage normally makes it with you, but come on: is there any substantive difference between CO Y and anybody else's Y? Something that would REALLY jazz you to want to fly CO in economy? I would aruge NO.

CO management should consider doing something, if only small things like upgrading the wine selections, to give their loyal flyers some reason to keep flying. I continue to hear more and more about longtime CO flyers defecting to UA. I have resisted this -- in fact, I hoped UA would go down in flames to help sort out this nonsensical industry capacity issue -- but the lure of a consistently-praised product at UA even in economy is becoming just too great for me to continue my slow shuffle to seat 15F in a cramped little CO 735, flying with other Plats next to me and behind me to IAH or EWR to connect to another 73x also in Y.

I still really like CO, but its hard for me to get excited about it anymore. I know CO doesn't care if I leave. They just need the money, and it doesn't matter if it comes from me or from some guy whose corporate travel agency pulled up the best last-minute fare and it was CO. Nevermind that he'll fly UA tomorrow and DL next week, and AA to Japan or London or Paris the week after. And I guess that's my (long-winded) point: CO continues to cheapen its product to the point where the customers it says it values most don't feel valued anymore.

Its just gotten old, its no fun anymore, and I don't feel like anybody special when I fly CO. I used to. Now I'm just another schmuck in the Elite line, boarding across the blue carpet along with 50% of the rest of the plane, enroute to my coach seat over 90% of the time (having failed to score an u/g even as a gold on H-fares), trying to feel something for CO that I just can't feel anymore: special.

Anybody got UA's number?

18003250046, 1P customer service.

CALFly5 - you're exactly right. In the past it was the little things that CO did *right* that wins people over. Their F isn't tons better than anyone else, its just a little bit, but enough to make a difference. Y is substandard. I got off the phone with a most unhelpful ESD agent after waiting on hold for 20 minutes.

I was having lunch with a colleague today and was mentioning this thread and he told me his girlfriend is actually insulted at the kind of food they pass out in Y. Who the hell wants those greasy disgusting things? would it be too hard to have a decent turkey sandwich?

I have an idea for CO: give us a budget and we'll see who can come up with the best coach meal.

FWIW, CO gave us a "short" reward only costing 20,000 round trip vs. the traditional 25,000. Still though, the rules surrounding rewards/redeposit seem fairly unchanged � have I overlooked something?
Yeep. But to be fair, they did shrink the international upgrade window to 24 hours from 72. Granted there's still a copay as well as no airport standby but at least they tried (and succeeded to an extent) to improve the largest Achilles heel in the OnePass program.
On routes which they believe they can sell out first. Plus, it seems they always used to hold two F seats until the boarding door closed.
Where have the upgrades gone? They�ve gone to Z fares - thank you simplifares! FWIW CO did put first back into the 753 and are in the process of beefing up their F cabins on 738's/739's.
They have shared this info with us at the DO's. Plus, if a member believe shenanigans were going on we can have CO pull the info for the flight (via cigarman). Often times it turns out nothing shady was going on - rather the events were, and understandably so, interpreted incorrectly by us.
Besides the on-time, lack of MX delays and reliable luggage there's not much. Well, at least not much more than meals, blankets and pillows.
Who offers a Y product which "jazzes" customers into paying more? Only domestic ones that come to mind are B6 and UA's E+ - plus the majority of UA's E+ occupants, the elites, receive it for free and the jury still out as to if B6 superior Y product can command an increased RSAM
Yes. But I do not think upping the wine is good answer for this.

If one makes the argument CO needs to up the wine selection to retain full fare, service sensitive J customers than I think you're onto something -- but upping the wine to create loyalty? Not sure if I can follow that one

...despite the fact I too would really like to see CO beef up their wine offering.
That's what this Plat did. Like UA for international ops - not so much for domestic ones. For the IAH-EWR sector... well, J.Edward's more so on the HOU-JFK sector now.
A valid point - but keep in mind there are some things they've held out against as well as improved (call centers, terminals, new planes).

UA has many strong points � especially on the international front � but when it comes to domestic travel and amenities CO�s a tough act to beat (at least from my experience). Granted UA will offer E+ and p.s. but as a native IAH�er this means connecting through IAD (or even worse, ORD) when heading north. DEN�s not so bad (or SFO for that matter) but still, while E+ is great CO F is nicer. Now, if the upgrades are consistently not coming through than that�s another story � but just keep in mind UA is a different animal than CO with its own unique advantages and disadvantages.