So I guess you get as excited as I do by those priceless drink tickets and the other worthless crap included with your new card every year.

I think that with other airlines dropping this CO no longer sees offering it as a competitive necessity. Also, CO will offer bonuses, etc. if it thinks that by doing so it can get people to act a certain way. The number of CO.com bookings has clearly increased (for a variety of reasons, this promo probably being one of them). I guess they don't feel they need to entice people with this offer because it doesn't change behaviour as much as it once did.

No big surprise here. After DL did away with the online booking bonus, I knew this was coming. The only surprise is that they waited "so long".

My typical flight IAH-LBB is pretty much the same price across the board but I will miss the 500 mile online booking bonus. This takes about 12,500 miles/year away from me. Just please dont take my .com specials away for the Sat-Mon trip to Lubbock at 1/2 cost.

In those days - we got special gifts - gold or chrome luggage tags, but the big excitement was new Elite Perks - like the companion upgrades, the lower Elite qualifications from 60/40/20 down to 50/35/20. Of course this was before ENHANCEMENTS like elimination of the two person reward level, increase to 75/50/25, elimination of top tier special EasyPass type reward only a few miles more, etc.

Of course at other airlines (names redacted to protect the innocent) there is FAR more availability of "Standard" or "SaverPass" awards which means you don't need 50K miles for a domestic round-trip.

Greg

Namely because CO kicks you in the groin for EQM purposes if you purchase a discount fare from someplace other than www.continental.com.

I'm not sure I'd agree...with Richard running the place these days I'd bet with them (unfortunately)...he's very customer focused (we definately miss him at NWA)....

Soc

PS I can't wait until he's running NorthDeltaEntal Air)

nice perk yes...realistic today no...what other major airline is still giving this bonus? It was a tool to get ppl to book at co.com where the distribution costs are the lowest...it's served it's purpose and as other airlines have done it can go away

xyzzy, I don�t disagree with you that the online booking bonus is something that most of CO competitors no longer offer, my problem with CO is they are very quick to take away a benefit that competitors no longer offer and not a competitive necessity anymore, not so quick to match benefits that other airlines have (i.e. SWU) and when they do, its some half assed version of the competitions program.

I can't wait to see how they handle the million mile recognition, they are now trying to determine �exactly� how many miles we have all flown. to accurately accomplish this, CO is consulting with NASA to determine the exact speed of the Earth's rotation and factor that in to the equation to make sure they can adjust down your actual miles flown to "protect the integrity" of the million mile recognition.

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).