No special treatment here either.

But now that I started flying AA to Asia, I do not plan on being a star for very long...that's for not letting me in on those Mileathon promos :p

Why does anyone care? Seriously

I guess its more about the intrigue; and educating myself on what it actually is (I am somewhat new to all of this)...than 'do I care'. It certainly isn't about status - as I haven't really seen any benefit from it (apart from being invited to yesterday's CO golf tournament - which by the way I would be interested to hear from those that participated).

Is Continental Select connected with CO-STAR? Or is that something completely different?

However, I have found it interesting to read replies to this thread on other *'s experiences.

I was a star for a while, but not anymore. I wasn't an elite at the time either. My only guess as to why I was made a star was the time I called Reservations to snag a reservation to Cairo--CO to AMS, KLM to Cairo, that I saw on the CO site but couldn't book. The res agent tried every possible permutation she could & just couldn't get that routing for me. After about 45 minutes, she finally got a routing & price I could live with. I thanked her for her time & bought the ticket.

A few days later, I checked the website for this reservation & voila, there was a star next to my name, and I saw she had put me in the elite section in Y.

I was still a star 2 years ago when I booked two award tickets & was able to score elite seating without asking again, even though I wasn't an elite.

I guess it pays to be nice sometimes. :)

We only care when a CO employee acknowledges us loud enough for other passengers to hear it. It is a momentary satisfaction to think, "Is everyone wondering who I am now and trying to guess how important I must be?" I understand it is almost the same feeling that some people get from philanthropy projects, etc although I find that hogwash completely laughable. We are offered few chances in life to truly impress upon our fellow man our individual importance and receiving extra attention while traveling by air is near the top of the list.

So, to answer your question, do I care if I am a Continental *? No, but I care that you all care.

And I know, just KNOW, you are all wondering right now how important that BigFly gentleman must be...... ;)

Nope -- not even INT'L
 

I have flown to Europe twice in full J and to Australiand and Japan this year -- and as a fully-fledged CO-Star FF, I can tell you that the FAs are pretty erratic about how they do the meal service. Coming back from FCO last Autumn, I had to make a protest when she told me that only the salmon was available -- and I was on another full J fare to EWR.

Problem is -- there is just very little consistency about how the FAs do the menu service.

I know it has been repeated here before, but costar status has nothing to do with elite. Also true there are no benefits written in stone, but I am sure some have benefited from them. Only problem is most are blind to them which is what makes it fun. Your elite section seating occured because you were on a full fare coach tkt. Your reward seating situation seems accidental because costar status doesn't offer you a better seat either. What may have happened was that there were no more seats avail for ASA and since you were a coastar the agent made a choice to put you there. One of those blind benefits

That's not entirely true. At one time, and I'd have to check to verify the new calculations, but all elites were put into the COSTAR pool. In addition, the top 1% of customer by revenue by a rolling 12 month period were placed into that pool as well. The number of COSTARs, I believe, floats in the tens of thousands, so it's not quite all that exclusive.

The main goal of the COSTAR indicator is for the CO employee to be able to recognize our 'top' customers. With this knowledge, we're supposed to give slightly better treatment, without stepping into the 'waivers and favors' category. This is not condoned nor encouraged. It is supposed to be an internal only classification. :)

So everyone who is elite, is recognized as a COSTAR? :confused:

Why does the employee need this additional indicator? If all elites are recognized, surely the elite status thay appears on manifest/screens etc., should be enough to recognize 'top' customers?

Because some of the top customers are not elite. For example, the guy that flies on a full J ticket to Europe and back once a year along with a couple of discount domestic round-trips is a very profitable customer, but won't earn even silver elite status.

Not all elites are CO :-: s. Not even all Plats.

Maybe that was true at one point, but I highly doubt it. Let's wait until COInsider returns from vacation to confirm.

COInsider is on vacation again?!!! :eek: LOL At least he has the sense this time not to check Flyertalk!

I think everyone is misinterpreting the "COSTAR pool" comment. I don't mean to speak for CalLowleeEmployee, but I interpreted the statement to mean that all elites were put into the pool to be considered for COSTAR status, but were not automatically considered COSTAR's because of elite status. If all elites were COSTARs, what would be the point of STAR status??

In other words, the COSTAR pool looks at all elites, and the ones who are in the top 1% of revenue generators for CO are COSTARS - that's where CO starts looking for for COSTARs. Then, presumably, they would look to the rare non-elite who might be a top revenue generator, although I can't imagine there would be more than a handful of such people, if any. If you're in the top 1% of spenders on CO, I would assume (and this is a total guess) that you'd have to spend at least $25k or $30k per year on CO, maybe more. It's impossible to spend $25k or $30k without being at least Silver, unless you purchased $30k worth of CO gift certificates or whatnot.

I noticed the same thing as the OP the computer flashes SSR STAR but when I catch a glimpse at the manifest no * while others do have stars next to their names.