Somehow I doubt it, but it would be nice.

If that is really true , they should be exposed and dealt with.

Exposed to what?

The change in nomenclature is a very small step toward truth-in-advertising on mileage awards. And it is clearly a way to change perceptions toward using more miles for travel.

The fact is that Standard awards have become very difficult. Yes, with a "little" flexibility standard awards can sometimes be secured, usually pretty close to travel date. This, of course, is opposite of what lots of fliers want--many look for advance reservations using their miles. CO's attitude seems to be that standard award inventory will come from seats that the airline is almost certain not to sell, and the decisions about this are made fairly late, This makes using miles for planned-in-advance trips exceedingly difficult.

The bottom line: recent semantic changes have done nothing to increase award availability; they are only an attempt to "spin."

That's how most airlines treat such seats. You correctly point out that they tend to delay availability. I don't know how far in advance you plan things, but I've found that a month or two out I can usually find what I want.Yep -- it's certainly spin. Who are the ad wizards who came up with that one?!

I think this view gives CO waaay to much unearned credit. If they are holding out, I think it is only until theya re able to guage how far they can push loyal customers before there is a backlash that affects their bottom line. Then they will roll out some "improvement", designed to placate.

Many of you say that it is hard to redeem standard rewards. It is on CO. I have had very little trouble on AA. It may be my market (AUS), but I have not had ONE instance where there are more options on CO than AA on any given award itinerary I have attempted to book.

CO miles are worth a lot less than AA or UA miles, as they are among the most difficult to redeem. As the CO execs made it clear at the do that they profit takes a front seat to everything else, I do not think this will change anytime soon.

I used to LOVE CO's program in the mid to late nineties. Their products and program have not improved at all since then, while other carriers have. Keep up with the times, stop devaluing the program. Otherwise, I will have to take all of my business elsewhere.

I don't think your experience has anything to do with your market. When I was Boston-based, the availability difference between CO and AA was startling - AA always seemed to have what I needed; CO never seemed to have much of anything. One would have to be a pretty delusional CO fan to claim that award availability is a strong point of the program. This isn't to say that other aspects aren't attractive, such as unlimited upgrades for elites, just that award availability is bad.

You mean the limited unlimited upgrades for elites?

channa's quote deals with redesigning BF. CO is not going to announce anything until it is ready to go with it. To do otherwise will result in disappointing a great many customers. Look at UA. They announced new seats and none were available on *any* flight. How many people looked at the ads and bought tickets expecting the new seat? I bet there were quite a few... I'd expect a newly updated BF offering at the time the 787 is introduced.

Agreed.

Then again, I shudder to think what Larry Kellner will deem as "improvements" in the next generation BF?

1. 2 more degrees of recline for 172 degrees!
2. No reruns of Joey or Reba older than 5 years
3. Less legroom. Less is More!!
4. No more free eye shades, but the new one will be better!
5. All alcohol served with an eye dropper (For an improved, sobering flight experience!)

At least with UA it was only going to be a few months before the new UA Business and First seats were available on some flights. When DL announced the new BusinessElite seats, at the time it was going to be over a year before the seats started to appear in any aircraft.

I must admit that it was fun watching that 33 page thread in the UA forum concerning the flights last weekend on which UA was supposed to introduce the new Business and First Class seats. Everyone engaged in wild speculation about the product launch, then bought tickets and burned upgrade instruments to be on what they thought would be the flights on which the new premium products debuted. Then, UA pulled the rug out from everyone at the last minute, postponing the launch of the new product and failing to announce a new launch date.

Just covering my bases. To me the biggest plus that OnePass has over the OW and *A programs is that most of the foreign partner flights still earn full value RDMs, as well as generous elite bonuses. Whether the increased earnings outweigh the lesser availability, is something I am wrestling with, however.

Hmmm...ususally an annual marketing plan isn't developed in two phases - the "bad" itmes and then the "good". It's interesting that it's being parsed out this way.

And, in light of yesterday's Wall Street Journal article specifically citing Continental as one of the airlines getting "stingier" with it's FF program, I would hope someone in CO marketing wakes up and counters the negative press with something positive...assuming there really are any positive changes coming...