Fully agreed. Lets see what happens. But I suspect auto upgrades might fade away. But who knows? I am not an expert on this board.

CO indicated at the DO that the current upgrade system and 75K for top tier suits them and they do not plan to change - when *A comes along.

From the DO

In order to keep EUA's the 50% rule stays. SWUs too expensive right now, powers that be will continue to study :rolleyes:.

Good - it suits me just fine too :)

Keeping UA Elites out of our exit rows and upgrade lists will suit me nicely too, as it's doubtful we will be getting access to E+ or upgrades on UA. They can pay 15K miles to upgrade on us, and I will cash in 15K miles to upgrade on them.

+1. CO has a tough time delivering on upgrades for people who live in heavy Elite markets, something's got to give.

As a Plat with a 33% upgrade rate last year (most of which were on connections), I would love to see a certificate-based program at CO.

Why? So you can spend money on upgrades that won't clear? You're better off looking for cheap A and B fares that clear into F during booking.

The cost of certs plus airfare for a roundtrip transcon on UA likely exceeds the lowest published B fare on CO.

It depends on your elite level and flying patterns. Many 1k's can confirm a transcon at booking using a free cert. This year that meant there were quite a few 1K's flying business class SFO-JFK for $178. It probably doesn't make business sense, but the UA system certainly makes it easier for cheap elites to upgrade.

You are neglecting the fact that all UA elites, and most especially 1Ks, get many free certs: 4 500-mile upgrades per 10,000 miles flown, plus 6 or 8 or some similar number of certs good for one one-way domestic upgrade each, plus 6 or 8 or some such SWUs good for one one-way domestic or international upgrade each. That's a lot of free upgrades, certainly enough to exceed most CO plat's free upgrade percentages.

Not all UA elites have great success at upgrading. Anyone below 1K who flies primarily domestic routes will only get enough upgrade instruments to upgrade around 20% of his or her flights. I'm sure there are Silvers on CO who are doing better than that if they have the right travel patterns.

I highly doubt a 1K who flies 100k a year, mostly domestic, is ever going to earn sufficient free certs to upgrade all of their flights - you're going to have to start reaching into your pocket at some point. Some folks here stated that you don't need to upgrade all of your flights, you just pick and choose the important ones.

If so, what is the benefit of the UA program? At least at CO, I have a good chance (depending on my travel patterns) to upgrade each and every one of my flights.

If a CO Plat is experiencing very low upgrade success due to their travel patterns, I think they should consider switching to either UA or AA if that works better for them - and not suggesting that CO change its program which still works perfectly well for the rest of us.

I'm fine taking my chances with EUA. If there is a CO flight I must upgrade on, then I either cash in 15K or buy B or A fares.

1K really works out better for people who mix short haul, transcon and international because of the mix of upgrades you get. A 1K who flies reglularly (i.e. more than 10,000 miles every quarter) will earn a minimum of 6 System Wide Upgrades (includes international flights - confirmable at booking), 8 confirmed regional upgrades (North America confirmable at booking) and 40 500-mile upgrades (confirmed at a window similar to CO's plat window). It requires some balancing, and might require an occasional mileage redemption upgrade for a transcon, but I would say the 1K who flies an international/domestic mix or entirely transcons will do much better on UA than CO. Now, if you are making plat flying short segments such as NYC-FL, then you would likely do better with an unlimited upgrade program like CO as long as CO doesn't sell out its F cabin before the upgrade window. Also, if you don't fly enough to make 1K then you are probably better off with CO (except for transcons), as Premier Executive (equivalent to Gold) only gets you 20 e-500's, and using them is quite difficult.

Has anyone heard anything different than a "late 2008" entry to *A? I'm getting annoyed with flying UA and US and not getting those miles to count towards status on CO! ;)

lets do the math for a 1K.

4 E500 milers per 10k miles.
So just using those you get upgraded 1/6th of the time
Upgrade percentage 16.5%
10K BIS + 2K upgrades

CR-1s
2 per 10k. I'll use EWR-LAX as the standard. EWR-LAX = 2,500 appx.
Upgrade percentage 33%
10K BIS + 5K upgrades.

Using SWUs domestically raises the total percentage to just over 50-60%

So if you fly nothing but EWR-LAX, UA's cert system is better than CO.

Lets look at mid-cons, EWR-IAH=1,400 miles and IAH-SEA=1,800 miles, I am going to use 1,500 just to make the math easier.

E500 milers are the same, 16.5%

Cr-1s
10K base + 3,000 miles, that equals a 23% upgrade percentage.

The overall total is 40 to 45% depending. + the SWUs which add another 5%


The results are pretty clear, the longer your base flight the better the UA system is for you. Now, for the short to medium range flyer the CO system is better. My flight IAH-ATL is 689 miles which would give me an upgrade percentage of 28% which is clearly below the 2/3 I am at for the year.

It will occur "promptly" following the departure from SkyTeam that is scheduled for October 24th. That's all anyone is saying at this point. Speculation runs rampant as to whether that means October 25th, November 1, January 1, 2010 or some other date, but none of us actually know as far as I can tell.

Why reach into your pocket? You just fly coach. It's the same result on CO when your upgrade doesn't clear, except a bit more legroom (and no cheeseburger).



I'm showing 20% upgrades off the e500s alone. 2,000 miles of upgrade for every 10,000 flown. There's some waste using them for suboptimal flights (2 x 500 for a 700-mile flight). There also can be a bonus when using them for connections.

The other piece to factor in is the op-up on UA. While it's not published, it happens every now and then. A byproduct of the cert-based program is that there are a number of flights were people don't bother upgrading (e.g., ORD-ATL comes to mind at 606 miles = 2 x 500 for a 1.5-hour flight, possibly in an ex-plus RJ).

Regardless, the point is that when a top tier on CO is reporting a 33% upgrade rate (and I have a feeling I'm not alone -- a lot of Plats live in SFO, LAX and EWR with likely similar results), all while one of the most heavily touted aspects of the Elite program is "free, unlimited upgrades," the bottom line is the airline is not able to reliably deliver on that, with respect to the competition. Anecdotal evidence from NW, DL, AA, and UA top tiers all report better upgrade stats.

Now if you're an OKC-based CO flyer, flying OKC-IAH-MSY getting close to 100%, good for you, the program works for you. If you live in a more populated area and/or fly to or from very heavy business destinations, it may not.