Hello to CO
 

I am starting to look at flying CO for some domestic routes this year. It's not a total defection from UAL, just that our corp. travel department seems to like CO for a lot of bookings.
So, hi, hello, how are ya, glad to be here. ^ Looking forward to being part of 2 FT boards now.

welcome to CO!

I hope you enjoy the well-maintained planes and younger, nicer employees!

Welcome to the bright side ;)

I had been 1K with UA for years before moving to IAHland 5 years ago. I started flying CO and realized how poor the service was on UA. I had to make a flight on UA a couple of weeks ago and that flight just reinforced my view of how much better CO is than UA. Yes, I miss the SWU, but not so much.

And meals at meal time.

And flight schedules that don't collapse at month-end for lack of staffing.

(Sorry, though, no E+).

and fly co to meet the yanks ^

Hi flyinryan! Nice to see you in these parts!

Personally, I think both airlines are solid US based carriers, where each carrier is unique. Focusing on the positives:

United Airlines:

* Economy Plus
* International F class on longhaul flights
* Channel 9
* Drinkable wine in international premium cabins
* Better Asian network
* Excellent global alliance and partners
* Introduction of flat/ horizontal seats in international F & C classes
* Million Miler program
* Very decent reward availabilty 11 months out
* 6 SWUs (confirmed international upgrades on most fares) for top tier elites
* Up to 8 CR1s (domestic confirmed upgrades on any fare) for top tier elites
* Standby upgrades (day of departure) using miles/ SWUs for lounghaul intl. flights

Continental Airlines:

* Better meals in domestic F
* Better meals in international J
* Free meals in Y during mealtime
* Free booze in lounges
* Kickass wines for purchase in lounges
* Free wifi in lounges
* Free lounge access with Amex Plat card
* All US based phone agents for US based customers
* CO Insider on FT
* Far better website
* Mix and match award types
* Amex Membership Rewards Participation

Thanks for the welcome, everyone.
My first flight is Monday 1/7, SFO-IAH-CRP. It's in full Y, and I am already upgraded. The return in later in the week on a B fare, so that has a decent shot at the upgrade, right?

So, the grub in F is better on CO, is it? Sweet. ^

I kinda shudder at the thought of doing any longish flights in CO Y. I'm tall. That 31" pitch scares me and my knees. Hopefully, I can snag exit rows when I miss the upgrades.

I am willing to give CO an honest shot. I will miss some stuff about UA - mostly Channel 9 - but as for the rest...meh. I do like my SWUs, and most of my interaction with UA employees has been good. But aging planes, pi$$ed off employees, IT that is a total joke - they can have it.

See you in the sky!

Babu: one of the other neato things about UA: First Class seating in some regional jets, including the wretched CRappyJet. I have never missed an upgrade on an exPlus configured aircraft. ^
I had to take CO on a last-minute one-way last year CRP-IAH-ORF. It was all ERJ145's. I cannot describe my happiness when the Brazilian Torture Tube finally landed in Norfolk. Fortunately, I do not judge CO by that trip.

To/from SFO isn't a great upgrade chances route, either from IAH or EWR, though IAH is better. I wouldn't hold your breath, but be happy when it does happen. At least as a platinum you have a chance. Silvers/golds not so much most of the time.

I wouldn't judge any airline based on one flight, but please keep in mind that approximately 50% of CO's domestic flights are comprised of RJ's (ERJ & CRJ) and props. None of these planes has FC.

If you fly in and out of CLE, the majority of the flights are on RJ's.

And the 50% EQMs on your low bucket fares not booked at co.com! :p

duplicate post

Welcome to the CO Forum!

So, did you get comp'd to Plat?

:D
Nah, I snuck in a quick 75K EQM before I bothered to post here. :D;)
(yes, I did.)
And many thanks to a great OnePass service center. I e-mailed about a comp to PLT this morning. I got a response, and took a photo of my UA1K card, cut n pasted my UA 2007 statement, put it all in a Word doc, e-mailed it off and blammo: a couple hours later, I'm PLT.
Now, whether I keep it - that's a different story. But as I said: I really will give CO a fair shake. And so far, so good. ^

After you fly CO and get to enjoy new, clean planes and other amenities and folks that actually enjoy working for CO...you will not look back at United Airlines and miss those SWUs. A

nd what you really should do is send a letter to Uniteds CEO and let him know that you have left, where you moved your business., and why. Feel free to tell your other UA flyers of your CO experience and get them to switch and send those letters to the CEO.

I am sure UA knows that the cost to get a new customer is probably 10x or more than of keeping an existing UA frequent flyer happy.

I have had the unfortunate experience of flying United once...and I was not impressed at all. Planes were old, dingy, gate agents were crabby, and flight attendents were not friendly. Its all about customer service and if an airline can't provide decent customer service then why are they around?

I would not be surprised to see one of the majors go under/get bought out this year with oil prices at $100 per barrel.

I did write UA and let them know I was leaving and why and what did I hear? Yep, silence. The years I'd been good to them (Including 99-01 where I made true 1K instead of 1K lite) meant absolutely nothing to them. It pains me to ever buy a ticket on them, especially an F tix, but sometimes it's my only option. I laughed when I would get one of their "marketing" emails thanking me for my years of loyalty :rolleyes:

CO is a great airline who actually cares about their customers as well as the bottom line. Since partnering with CZ and KE, their Asian system is quite good.

Funny you should mention UAL service. My credit card says Chuck, my license says Charles. The sweet gate agents at UAL couldnt make the connection and I went through 2 supervisors and the SSSSSSSS because they accused me of using an alias. Thats what UAL service is all about

Whoa whoa, back up.
The gate agents gave you an SSSS boarding pass?
If you were at the gate, wouldn't you already have a boarding pass?
So, the ticket counter agents gave you an SSSS boarding pass?
I didn't know they had the ability (or responsibility!) to do so.
I think this was a TSA production, not a United production. Your BP said Chuck, your ID says Charles. Is that about right?

I'm in the same boat - I comped over from UA (1P to Gold) based primarily on the reports here of better service and COInsider's contributions to this board. My biggest hesitation in switching: CO's 31" pitch in coach. I fly about 30% full fare F, 30% full Y and 30% deep discount coach, all domestic. Hopefully I'll be able to get exit rows for that 30% of the time I fly deep discount coach. Otherwise, I'll probably switch all my flying (including full F) to a different carrier. It's really too bad CO can't outdo even WN with its coach hard product.

So far I'm 1/1 on upgrades as a gold (SFO-CLE), though I didn't actually end up flying (yesterday's weather in SFO). The return hadn't cleared before I canceled but I had a fantastic exit row seat. We'll see how it goes for the rest of the year.

Not to mention that if one is at the gate, one has already cleared security, so I wonder what an SSSS boarding pass issued at the gate would do...

Now now, easy on the UA bashing or I may actually have to step in.;) Ryan, we look forward to seeing you back in the friendly skies soon, as soon as you realize all the upgrades you're missing out on, flying in international C without paying much, oh, and actually having opportunites to redeem miles. Did I even mention Economy Plus for those (rare) times upgrades don't clear, or Channel 9?:p

The TSA officer would have to still "approve" it before boarding the plane, so either you'd have to go back to the security checkpoint or a TSA officer would have to come to the gate to do a pat down.

But didn't Chuck already have a boarding pass and already clear security? I don't understand what could have changed in the time between Chuck cleared security and arrived at the gate.

I get it, it's the TSA regulation about suspicious nickname on credit card...;)

Come on now, lucky, we both know I am not leaving UA entirely. United is my 'hood, and has been for a long time. But, I do seem to get the CO option quite a bit from AMEX Corp travel and my company's negotiated pricing. So, I figured, since I am gonna hafta fly CO and other SkyTeam carriers, why not give CO a shot and see what so many people seem to like so much?
Having said that - I have no desire to try CO (or any other airline) as a Blue member, so the PLT comp makes sense. If I like CO, I will be back many times. If it's not so much...well, we shall see.

This alone is worth the price of admission ^.

Did I lay it on a bit thick? :D

Don't forget the CO DOs, III and counting ^^.

Exactly my point

I am a CO frequent flyer who has flown UA about a half dozen times in the past 36 months. I have always found UA's planes to be perfectly adequately maintained. Although I have no status on UA, I was able to sit in E+ for a small additional charge.

UA's E+ beat the pants off of CO's Y. Hands down.

Once, I needed to come home early and I found the UA gate staff at DEN to be very helpful and accommodating (I got the last seat back to LGA)

UA also has FC on some of its RJ's (about 50% of CO's domestic flights are on RJ's and none of these planes has FC).

Flights to/from ORF tend to be pretty abysmal on any airline. That market has so many government fares (read: not profitable, heavily discounted) that none of the airlines seem to put any effort into ORF flights.

It does seem scary to fly from east coast to IAH in a single-class RJ. I don't mind a ~90 minute flight in a single-class RJ, though.

Much beyond ~90 minutes (on any airline) in an RJ, I'd like some chance at some kind of upgrade to more legroom. I don't care so much about seat width as legroom, though, so premium economy would be just fine thank you.

Oh, and the other airlines are using more and more RJs also. So there is no paradise.

Certainly CO is not alone in using RJ's or using them on long flights, but CO is fairly unique in that it only flies small RJ's (ERJ-145, CRJ-200) in a single class on numerous flights within the maximum range of these a/c (a good example is IAH-YYZ, about 3.5 hrs).

Airlines such as UA and NW have FC on their RJ's that handle long flights, and even a carrier such as US, which only has one class in their RJ's, uses larger RJ's (ERJ-170, 175 and 190) on their longer RJ routes (although US's E-190 do have FC).

There is a world of difference between an ERJ-145 with its limited overhead cabin, single lav, the low cabin height, and the E-170-195 line which are essentially small mainline jets.

And then there is UA, which flies brand new 2-class E170s from the faraway land of IAD. (about 300 miles.)
Of course, that means dealing with the third-world country that is IAD, but that's for another thread. ;)

Let me be more specific: I arrived at the airport and tried to check in at the UAL kiosk. The the message said: see the agent. I went up to the agent (sorry, I meant counter agent not gate agent) and she asked me why I was using an alias. I said lady, I dont even have an alias. She said, your reservation says your name is Chuck, and your ID says your name is Charles. I said "Very good, I'm glad you figured that out", now where is the alias deal?" After explaining to me Chuck was an alias for Charles, I knew I had to talk to a supervisor because the public schools can only teach so much. The one supervisor agreed with the agent, a second supervisor ordered the agent to check me in immediately, and my boarding bass was littered with SSSSSSSS

Welcome to CO, flyinryan,

A few years ago I did what you did - except in the reverse order.

I think others here have posted on the various nuances between CO and UA and while I rag on both carriers, both of them have their selected strengths and weaknesses.

Three things that UA does much better than CO (IMHO) is elite recognition, International upgrades, and service recovery.

While CO can do these things well it has been my experience they fall down more often than not. To CO's credit, they will listen to us and make changes (for example same day BF standby for upgrades will hopefully be returning soon and elite prioritization for upgrades -- granted UA had both these things but I think it does CO credit to begin implementation these changes after many, many suggestions from FT. Plus who knows...maybe one day we'll even get channel 9...)

Where CO still fails -or needs improvement- is in how they handle service recovery when something goes wrong. To CO's credit, flights seem to MX/CX out at a rate far less than UA (or at least the ones I've been on) but when an issue does come up CO's seems much less willing to work with the customer to find an alternative option than UA.

Likewise UA seems to bend over for a lowly 1P (like myself) but on CO I sometimes get the feel that I'm just another Plat. Granted I had a 95%+ EUA rate for 2007 (but I did cherry pick my flights) and was able to find decent award availability with CO but again on UA agents across the board really seemed willing to bend the rules due to status when I was in a pinch -- something CO's agents would not.

That said,

I think CO offers a better overall domestic product for Plats when compared to UA. The exit rows can serve as a defacto E+ and the upgrades, if not on a peak flight, can come easily - but most importantly, CO seems to be able to run their domestic network with far fewer MX issues than UA.

On the flip side, I think UA offers a far greater product for mid-tier+ elites internationally...but I suppose that's for a different thread.

Here's what to expect from CO when compared to UA:

• Greater product consistency throughout the system
• Recognition of status - but not to the extent of UA
• Immediate feedback from upper management should you stumble across an issue where CO fails.
• Decent upgrade rate for average flights
• Marginal upgrade rate for elite-heavy flights if booked in higher fare class

One other big difference, J.Edward, that has to be brought up is the presence of E+, which makes a huge difference in the economy flying experience.

Yes, CO obviously has exit row seats but, depending on the a/c you're flying, these may not be a huge improvement (think 735 where the exit row seats are hardly more spacious, and the 762 where there are no exit row seats in Y).

Even on the planes that have exit row seats, these are a small percentage of all the Y seats and are often scooped up by the highest status elite flyers.

On an average UA a/c about 30-50% of the Y seats are in E+, some with as much as 36" of seat pitch. While UA elites receive these automatically free of charge with their status, any peon can buy an E+ seat for a small additional charge.

Thr next time you're in CO Y EWR-HKG in 31" seat pitch for 16 hours you may want to think hard about that....

Hmmm. 3 of those 5 don't sound all that great to me. As a 1K, my upgrade rate is pretty darn good - even on transcons. Last year, I upgraded SFO-JFK, SFO-BOS AND SFO/LAX-IAD with regularity. I think I missed SFO-IAD twice, and one of those was on a last-minute coach fare.
But like I said, I am willing to give CO a fair shot. Remember, I am taking this trip to CRP on CO primarily because United does not serve CRP. And, since my corp travel policy has put me on CO in the past, and tried to steer me to CO on other occasions, I think there is an opportunity for me to fly CO several times in 2008. So we shall see. I will be making notes, but unbiased ones. ;)

IME, as a 1P last year my upgrade success rate was 67% on 26 upgradeable flights (65% were transcons). Since I've achieved 1K in early December, I've had seven flights, all transcons, upgraded on four, three flights were canceled and three were delayed. UA does do nice with me on the irrops both as 1P and 1K booking me immediately on the next available flight and I was able to secure exit row aisle each time. I'm planning on some Europe trips this year which is why I went for 1K, but honestly, it's the E+ that keeps me coming back to UA.

Another defector here. Walking away cold turkey from US this year, I just can't handle that airline anymore.

flyinryan and The CO Experience:
 

Well, with a huge sample size of 2 mainline 737-800 midcons, and 2 hops on a CRappyJet, flyinryan can state the following:

1. CO domestic F is just far, far better than UA F. Better seat, better food, nicer/newer cabins, more legroom. Upgrades cleared on both SFO-IAH and IAH-SFO. Each time I had a very enjoyable flight. The flight attendants on the outbound were terrific. On the return - not so much, but I can let it slide. Not bad, mind you, just not good.

2. IAH is big and confusing for a small-town East Bay hick like me, who prefers the cozy familiarity of SFO. But it ain't bad.

3. I am not terribly enthralled by the mileage parts of OnePass. But I really like the product in the air.

4. All CRappyJets everywhere just plain suck out loud.

Looking forward to more flights on CO this year! I may even commit to this and look to renew PLT for 2009. :cool:

I feel for you "Chas", but it's a likely story from someone who won't even share his real name with us, his FlyerTalk friends. All this time we thought you were "Chas" and now we find out your name is really CHARLES? Exactly how many of these aliases do you have? What government are you working for? WHEN DID YOU STOP BEATING YOUR WIFE! ANSWER ME!!!

:D