Thanks for the heads up, Scott. If the costs for providing the rewards have increased significantly, it raises the question of how fast the revenues associated with earning miles have grown.

Miles are earned for flights and lots of non-flight activities (credit cards, hotel stays, etc.) Are the revenues from non-flight activities keeping pace with the increases in fares and surcharges we pay to CO for actually flying on the airline on a per capita basis?

These changes are disheartening, but what else is new? I've seen the first class cabins shrunk to make the possibility of an EUA negligible; the legroom in the Elite section of coach pales vs. UA's Economy Plus; the BusinessFirst seating is no longer a superior product vs. other carriers; and my number one heartburn producer, obtaining the elusive businessfirst upgrade on an overseas flight. I've increased my CO miles this year solely because DL is offering BE flights in I class out of JFK that have suited my travel requirements very nicely. Miles flown on CO is way down this year, for all of the reasons stated.

That said, I do appreciate your posting the information so we've got some lead time if we elect to use any full-tilt mileage bonuses.

I have to say that this is a lot of nothing to me. I don't book slEasy Pass, and if I did need last seat availability on a flight EWR-HKG spending 300K miles seems like a much better deal than the $11K that the J fare costs. That is 3.75cpm value, which is pretty high.

If you're using your 50K miles to book IAH-MSY in F the $484 fare is a bad redemption value, but doing it on a transcon is going to get you back up near the 3+cpm value point.

The QF redemption increase is something that probably should've happened a couple years back when QF changed their process - it was a nice run while we had it. I always thought I'd end up booking one of those, but I've found RTW rewards to be more my cup of tea for the big redemptions.

Yes, increasing the price of the awards is "bad," but if it only is "bad" for other people and the things I do aren't affected as much, I find it hard to get worked up about it.

The 500 RDM booking bonus will cost me a few thousand miles, and I suppose that'll be something I deal with, but I can't see that as a sufficient competitive advantage to push me one way or the other in my bookings. For everyone who is saying that it will drive you to Orbitz, why? You can always book the mixed carrier options using CO's call center if you want, and you'll still need to book at co.com for the low fares to get your 100% EQMs. I guess not worrying about the 500 RDMs makes it easier to shop when mixing carriers on expensive fares, but those engines all charge a booking fee, so you're going to pay for the luxury to go that route. I'm sure CO won't mind that too much.

They must have already made the improvements to the booking process. I had done my homework and knew exactly which flights to ask for and the agent(s) were able book in no-time flat. Even snagged the QF 107 LAX-JFK connection. In fact, 105,000 miles got me MCO-ATL-LAX (DL :( but at least BE seats), LAX-MEL, stopover, MEL-CHC, open-jaw, AKL-SYD-LAX-JFK-MCO all in J class -- Will really miss this (cheap) perk.

Here here. Not a single new perk of any benefit for me.

They've been booking the QF awards in real time for a couple of years now.

The change appears to be that any agent will be able to do that (as opposed to the partner award desk).

This reminds me of a recent article claiming the Danes were the happiest people on Earth. Turns out they just had low expectations. But, you are right, at least this is honest. Of course, as others have mentioned you can't spell unCOmpetitive award availability without CO!

Two in the past two years (averaging one per year). Thus, CO's changes mean 100,000 more miles necessary for the same amount of travel.

I agree. It used to be that CO was a leader; now they're laggard. It's as though they now go for lowest-common-denominator.

Thanks to COInsider for leveling with us, but this is yet another devaluation of OnePass, and CO's apologists and cheerleaders can't hide that fact.

One final note: why are devaluations/price increases always "changes" whereas improvements are trumpeted as just that--"improvements"

I do understand that the 500 mile bonus was to get people to book on the website but with no bonus it might cause loyal Co customers to start looking elsewhere for flights.

The effect of this "enhancement" will cause people who would use that "bonus" milage for travel more difficulty.
Ex silver at 30 segments removes 15000 miles from consumer use.
gold at 60= 30000 plat at 90 = 45000
even if they dont count as EQM its taking milage out of your acct that you can use for flights.
That is one of the reasons for loyalty to Co and not some other airline.

What is next they "lets raise fares by $10 game?" that some airlines seem to do every other week and blame it on the cost of a BBl of crude. :mad:

The effect is like saying they have raised the number of miles necessary to qualify for elite status at any level

On the one hand, CO is the victim of its own success. The carrier is choking on the legions of elite flyers, many of whom find there is not nearly enough inventory for upgrade or award travel.

On the other hand, CO is also suffering from the consequences of the grindingly unimaginative leadership of Larry Kellner. In business you can make money by cutting cost or adding value, or a combination of the two. Larry only understands cutting cost. The man does not have an imaginative or visionary bone in his body. He only knows how to count the bean.

Right now the airline is doing fine, but Larry Kellner is slowing sowing the seeds of CO's slow but inexorable decline as it continues to nickel and dime while all around it the industry continues developing and transforming.

At the current rate, CO will be the most out-of-date product in American skies within five years.

Yup, and it helps make CO a more attractive takeover target.

Wonderful. Now instead of Standard and SleazyPass we can begin to refer to awards as "Capacity Controlled", "Expanded Availability", and "Last Seat Availability". Gotta love the spin!

Totally AGREE!

The recent "enhancements" will drive some business from me to UA/AA. I will end up with about 140K REDUCTION due to the 500 RDM loss/ticket per YEAR! This was a FACTOR in why I decided to bring business TO CO!

With the well-known fact that "standard/saver/cheap" (whatever you want to call it) being MUCH MUCH easier to come by on UA/AA/US, I figured the 140-160K I would get in bonus every year would make up for the fact I may need to book easypass tix.

So loss of bonus, combined with no SWU's (VERY important to me!) will drive me to UA/AA. I will split my 300 flights a year with CO and either AA/UA (most likely UA as ORD/SFO/LAS from NY is a frequent dest. for me).

CO was regarded as the "cream of the crop" to me. Now it is STILL VERY VERY good...but quickly sliding. Does 'ole Lar have some language in his agreement that he gets $XXXXMM when CO is merged/taken over/sold off? He is heading towards the slippery slope of cutting costs, while still have TONS of dedicated FF'ers, cheap but profitable-turning into a class-lagging airline!

The previous changes led me to jump ship last year. The pity is that CO was such a wonderful product and value until the screws began to be tightened.

The main issue is not even so much the constant erosion of benefits (which is bad enough) it is the virtual complete lack of a plan or vision for the next generation product.

And when little, incremental changes are made (such as adding power outlets in certain Y cabins) they occur at a comically glacial pace. In some cases, such as the conversion of some 738's to mid-cabin configuration, the glacial pace of change is then stopped abruptly (without any notice).

I certainly understand CO's desire to make money. But CO will need to invest in itself in order to keep making money in the future. The business plan of making money primarily by eroding benefits and service is, virtually by definition, a sure fire plan for long-term problems.

any changes to the elite program or does that remain as is?

You do realize that doing something like this is a 10-15 year commitment (i.e., if they redesigned BF, they would be living with it for 10-15 years).

With that said, it is possible that with CO's reasonably strong product (compared to the previous generation business class products), they're holding out until all carriers make their investments and will be stuck with what they chose, so CO can come out with something unique and blow everyone else away. After all, think about how BF was when it first came out...pretty revolutionary.

But from a strategy perspective, being the last, but a leader, could pay off for years. And if this is indeed what they're doing, remaining quiet about it is the right tactic.

So I'm not convinced CO is not planning something. I have a feeling they are, and are deliberately being quiet until the UA and DL rollouts are well underway. ;)

drink tickets
 

Hey! I finally used one of those on my non-upgraded flight from FRA-EWR today!

First one in 10 years with onepass.

So, how exactly does the December 1 change for the 500 CO.COM bonus miles jive with the fact that, TODAY, CO is supposed to give 60 days notice? I guess my calendar could be wrong or CO may not consider this part of the OP program, but it may not be perceived that way.

Based on Scott's original post "Hi Everyone, although these aren't yet available at continental.com, there are some upcoming OnePass changes that we want to make sure you're aware of" Looks like he considered it part of the OP program.

AA has QF J for 125K. I sure hope CO isn't going higher than that.

While the changes don't effect me a whole lot, I want to thank Scott for letting us know in advance of the announcement on co.com.

Now what are the goodies we can expect? ;)

I would suspect that most elite CO members are booking travel through their corporate travel agencies - so they would get no booking bonuses and unfortunately lower EQMs. But it is a double whammy - reducing the ability to earn miles while at the same time increasing award levels.

Every one of these changes is negative. :td::td::td:

Agreed about the 10-15 year cycle. And it is certainly not inconceivable that the next generation J class will be something revolutionary (not inconceivable but unlikely based on Larry Kellner's record).

But there is so much more to the airline product than international business class. What about a better economy class with more legroom (as every other U.S. carrier has)? How about really, seriously updating the IT systems? How about creating a new revenue opportunity for CO's considerable and increasingly dissatisfied elite passengers, something akin to E+?

It's interesting to note the rigidity and narrowness of Larry Kellner's business model. Any enhancement a la E+ is automatically seen as nothing more than a loss of revenue (fewer seats = fewer revenue opportunities). The fact is, if CO really wants to do something revolutionary, the next product is enhanced premium economy, where the additional space and amenities are directly tied to additional revenue.

There is absolutely no reason to believe, given the current levels of demand and supply, that such a product would represent anything but lots of additional revenue.

I would suspect that most elite CO members are booking travel through their corporate travel agencies - so they would get no booking bonuses and unfortunately lower EQMs.
****

For me, I personally book the travel of the 8 people in our group. We fly about 300 days per year with 90% of it being domestic travel. In our group, more or less all of us are top tier, or close to top tier elite on all the major carriers except for American and US Airways. We (I) basically decide at the beginning of the year who we will choose to get status on in the upcoming year (we chose one from CO/NW/DL / one from US/UA / and then just fly the others whenever the nonstop option is better.)

American called me to ask why the star in our group does not fly them anymore (used to be EXP, and I basically told them that while it is nice for him to have status, unless they were willing comp status to the others in the group, it makes no sense to me to have him the only one with status while the rest suffer)...

AA declined, and as such do not get the business, so be it

We are all loyal Blue Carpet flyers

COInsider, is it possible for you to say whether, when the QF levels are increased, there will be some advanced warning and a chance to book at the now effective level? Or should we be getting prepared for a no-notice change? Thanks!

What's frustrating for me--and I've been with CO long before they rolled out BF--is that I can remember when OnePass was revolutionary and innovative. It isn't anymore.

Thank you, Scott, for posting the upcoming OnePass program changes without spin. ^

:td: to the loss of the 500 RDM co.com booking bonus. But, I cannot say that I did not expect it either this year or next, given the current competitive landscape.

Overall, we will see some interesting changes this year:

Million Miler Program (launch date TBD) - ^
"Added value" to each OnePass mile that should result in more Standard (SaverPass) availability - ^

20% increase in redemption rates for certain BF EasyPass rewards - :td: if you like to redeem EasyPass rewards
Increase in redemption rate for Standard domestic F rewards from 45k to 50k (and to 100k for EasyPass) - :td:
Elimination of 500 RDM co.com booking bonus - :td:

Off-Peak Rewards Discontinued June 1, 2002
 

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/archi...p/t-41688.html

Not only have the off-peaks been eliminated, they now call the standard rewards, "savers" and the premiums "standard."

The off-peaks were great values. I think that I had 2 round-trip coach to Hawaii for 45,000 miles, and a hotel discount and free car? My last off-peak used was in November, 2002. Got two business class tickets to Cairns, Australia, with a stopover in Japan, flying NW to Japan in business, then CO down to Cairns. I think it was 80,000 miles for a business class ticket.

Does anyone have the off-peak chart that was eliminated in 2002?

Why is everybody so surprised?
 

We have been told (warned) by various magazines and newspapers and web sites that the value of our miles are constantly and consistently being devalued and will continue to be so over the years. The FF program as originally designed by AA and copied by all got completely out of control in terms of numbers of ways to accumulate miles and numbers of miles out there. I personally in a 5 year period never flew DL and was able to get over 195K miles thru various other promotions. Is that the original intention of the Skymiles program. No. Are they happy about it. I don't lnow but I guess maybe no. Am I happy that I used those miles for a 90K J seat to Europe and 3 Y seats to PTY (on CO metal) Yes. Was I upset when they raised their levels. Of course. Can I do anything about it? No.

While I may not be happy about these CO changes they really do not effect the vast amount of us in terms of redemption. I will miss the 500 mile booking bonus as that was about 5K a year for doing what I normally do anyway. I always use my CO MC so I get the 5% so I will continue to book on CO. com even without the bonus.

I will be less happy if the Standard Awards keep getting harded to find and if they get raised to higher levels for redemption. My accumulated miles on UA go much further than on CO and I am rapidly burning thru the UA miles before they get devalued. That will leave me with about 400K on CO and a lot of membership reward miles to transfer. CO works best for me out of EWR and I will stay with them.

Thanks COinsider as always for your sharing of information.

Cheers

Funny how the bad changes are sorted out so quickly while we wait and wait wait for the promised improvements. The “improvements are coming, we just have to finalize them” song has been sung many times over the past few years, and we are still waiting.

I seriously doubt the supposed improvements are announced by December 1, or by February 1. Just more vague words of “they are coming, we just have to finalize them”. The bad stuff can be told before it goes “live”, but not the good stuff.

Scott, if you’re not going to give me 500 miles for booking on co.com, will you finally start listing partner metal flights for full itineraries? Or is this part of the secret “coming improvements”?

Thank you for the advance on the news you did bring. If it ain’t on continental.com, does that mean the 60 or 30 days notice hasn’t started yet, since, surely, not every OnePass’er is a FlyerTalk member?

One last question, Scott - will reward booking of Emirates flights also be streamlined and transparent to CO’s agents?

No question. The fact is that one of the major causes of these devaluations is the breadth of the ST Alliance and the tremendous added demand (and cost) of integrating these frequent flyers.

It has been written many times how the ST Alliance is a two-way street, how CO ff's also benefit because we can book travel on so many other ST airlines. That is, in some respects self evident, except to the extent that not all passengers require itineraries on many of the international carriers.

In other words, many passengers from ST airlines are taking CO inventory while many CO passengers, now shut out of this CO inventory will never have a need for inventory on the ST partners.

At least there is some advance notice. On Feb. 25 I booked two business awards using US Airways miles to Southeast Asia for 90K each. Three days later the mileage went to 120K with no advance notice. This devaluation has been occurring since at least 1993 on all airlines. A problem with CO is that I rarely find an international business seat at what was the standard level. The past 5 years I used about a million CO miles for NW & KLM business award seats. Not once was I able to snag a seat on CO.

I agree that E+ can be a revenue bonanza, as witnessed by the healthy premium on such fares that I have seen on BA, VS, and SK, as well as rumblings that both BA and VS are looking to expand these cabins. However, their remains the open question about whether CO has the route and fleet mix to make this work. I struggle to see how CO could offer a meaningful upgrade in space on the 757s, without going 2-2. At that point, how do you differentiate BF? And will CO see a huge rush to E+ for what are often 6-7 hour TATL flights? At least to me, the $700 premium for E+ makes a lot more sense for a SFO-LHR leg than for a EWR-DUB leg.

And the above avoids the million-dollar question, which is whether CO's BF is good enough to prevent E+ from poaching BF customers. To offer something that would be competitive with BA or VS, you are looking at close to 40" of legroom and 20" of width. With BA or VS, they can dangle the flat bed carrot, which probably minimizes the impact somewhat, but CO can only offer a better product - not one as completely different as a flat bed.

I can think of a few ways they can keep the 757s 3-3 and still have E+. For one, more legroom. They lose a few rows but have 2-3 rows of extra legroom (I'd pay the premium). CO could also have more comfortable seats (leather maybe) and slightly better food.

I believe that the booking bonus was originally institued as pairt of all airline's efforts to eliminate travel agent payments. The airlines made significantly more money on each ticket booked online even when giving 1,000 or 500 milies. I supsect there was a metric out there of some sort as in when X% of flights are booked online then bye, bye milies bonus. The airlines have won the war with travel agents so incentives are no longer needed. Most people book online. I don't know the business arrangements between an expedia/orbitz/travelocity and the airlines but assume it is such that the 500 mileage bonus is no longer a significant savings in abilty to book directly versus through a another site.

As for other changes, inflation happens (can't say I like it) but stuff does tend to get more expensive over time. That said, the airlines have always had a reverse model to the rest of the market. For some reason, the cost of seats goes up as it becomes more likely they will be come unsold.

If I were to call today for a flight tomorrow and there 10 empty seats in BF with a high chance at least several would go out empty they want to charge me more in money or miles. The argument being that I apy more for the convenince of them having a seat at the last moment. I don't feel that is actually a premium service because if the could have sold the seat they would have already.

I would love to see some kind of mileage auctions for last minute seats. That would truely determins the value of a seat... So possible now with today's tech.

Personally, I love to see PE on CO. But I'm not holding my breath. Nor am I convinced it's a revenue bonanza for those who offer it. If it is, you'll see SQ, CX and so on jumping into the fray early on. Both of those airlines compete with BA, VS or BR on a lot of routes, but they decide to stay put. [And even SQ has PE on the 345, they decide not to do it on the A380; and QF is only putting like 2 rows of seats on theirs.] The future international heavyweights like EK, QR, etc also are not introducing them.

Anyways, if I were to design CO's 757 PE, I'll make it like the "business class" seats in European shorthauls. Convertible seats from 3-3 to 2-2 with more width and a wide armrest. [Perhaps add one or two inch of legroom, in CO's case.] Depends on PE/Y sales, they can convert the rows in a few minutes between the two products.

I'm not a fan of Euro-J, and would not pay the same sort of premium that BA/VS/BD command for their Y+ (over Y) for a seat lacking such fundamentals as a proper leg-rest (though the new VS product only offers a footrest).

While I am sure that some would pay a premium for this, my point was just that I don't think a revenue premium for extra legroom and better food would be the slam dunk that it is for the true E+ products. Remember that UA only sees fit to charge $350 per year for unlimited E+ access (and gives it away to elites). An E+ ticket on VS or BA, however, can easily cost $700-$1000 more, and the seats seem to sell.

The biggest irony for us old-timers is that you used to actually EARN your frequent flyer miles by flying and then could look forward to attainable biz class awards (I'm also daydreaming of triple miles and 1,000 point minimums per flight). Who the heck can accumulate 500,000 miles -- by flying, no less -- for a pair of BF Asian award tickets? If you were flying that much, you'd want to redeem miles to be able to stay home. :)

Every year, this seems more and more like a credit card game and less a frequent flyer program. Just the musings of an infinite platinum.