Anyone have any comments on this?
Thanks

M
 

How long are your trips to HKG. Do they last only one week? If so, then the flying Y would really suck. An extra seat doesn't get you a lot. Really, I think there are two things you should do.

I'm not a big fan of UA, but it sounds like they might be a better choice for you. Delays out of ORD might mess up your schedule, but that should be your company's burden to bear for putting you in this position. The schedule to HKG includes a morning flight to ORD with a two hour delay. Morning flights are MUCH less likely to get backed up. Most delays happen later in the day. Also, you have the two hour delay anyways, so if you're an hour late no big deal. Not sure how upgraded those certificates will get you, but UA does have lie flat beds in their 3 cabin setup. If the company is still buying you two seats and you get double miles for them, you can always use mileage from the accounts to upgrade you when you don't have the systemwide ones.

Another suggestion would be to get them to buy you one full Y ticket instead of two cheap coach tickets. It's about 2x the price, but you'll be able to upgrade it much more easily and will consolidate your miles to one account. You also get 150% EQM and RDM, so they'll be taking care of you. The one way upgrades for a Y fare are only 10k miles. For 6 trips a year, you'd get >140K EQM and be a platinum star member and you'd net 6*((16k*150%*225%) = 264000 - 120000 = 144000. You'd have enough miles left to actually do something with them.

My advice would be to make the company do option 2 or find another company. With that option, you'd be up front all of the time and have a much better chance of sleep not to mention the experience.

CO don't let paying passengers have upgrades to empty BizFirst seats at departure to prevent evil passengers from making bogus reservations for ficticious passengers in the hope of assuring empty BizFirst seats available for the butts of said evil paying passengers.

Non-revs (mainly CO employees) don't suffer the same restrictions as Elite paying passengers, and have access to seats of last minute no-shows. (CO's a great company to work for, ain't it?)

Non-revs, however, have gotta be extremely careful not to leave any way for the company to trace them when making their bogus reservations, or they'll end up as CO EX employees with a big bill for the lost revenue. It's happened.

When I boarded the plane there were 8 empty seats in FC..I don't understand this...
*****

Always call Continental in the days running up to your flight if the upgrade waitlist has not cleared. While this may not be the case for all of you, I have yet to ever have a waitlist clear, but I have also never been denied when calling to get it cleared in the days running up to the flight

Thanks for the info. My trips usually last 10-14days..I not going go to HKG, but I could go to Shanghai (NW) or Beijing(CO).

To be honest CO Coach is not that bad. If I luck out and get row 16 (bulkhead) its not bad..I also don't mind paying and using miles for the upgrade..

I think my company will think I am crazy by wanting to connect through ORD when I could fly direct out of EWR..

I just wish CO would do something about their upgrade policy, especially for PLAT members..

I call CO almost daily up to my actual flight..The problem I have with them is sometimes I feel like talk to someone that actually knows what they are talking about, and then sometimes I get someone that doesn't seem to know anything.

I had flight back in July, leaving PEK on CO. I was in the Elite line, I asked the agent if there were any FC seats open on my flight, she said yes, I asked if I could upgrade..She said yes and charged me only $100.00, NO MILES. Now try that at EWR and there would be no way they would even consider it..I don't know why it happened, but I should have taken a picture of the agent and make sure I go back to her next time...

Sounds much like Aeroflot.