Ooops! Sorry, RTW awards are addressed in footnote at the bottom of the bottom of the page..

"Round-the-world Reward: Create a Round-the-world itinerary for 160,000 miles in Economy Class, 220,000 miles in Business Class, or 280,000 miles in First Class."

Good news.. Stays the same as current!

Bad news for me, but on the bright side, I can now stop my irrational habit of full fare purchases on RJs just to requalify!

Y actually is going up 20K (from 140K) but the J/F are the same. CO now has the best value for RTW in the premium cabin on *A, I believe.

Maybe. But CO doesn't acknowledge the PE cabin in terms of offering a reward or tickets for sale in that cabin so I would be very surprised to see them consider it as such in determining whether the pointy end is F or C/J.

Great news. ^^^

A few days ago I called in and waitlisted for NRT-IAH BusinessFirst upgrade for 25K and $100 on a B fare. Can that be cancelled without a fee?

Excellent news from Scott and CO. ^^^

I especially like #2, 4 and 6.

I am very pleased to see that reward travel to Tel Aviv is back down to 75K.
When Continental raised it to 90K in January, I planned to collect United miles and use them on the Continental flight to Tel Aviv for 75K. Luckily I didn't collect so many.
I only booked one 90K award this year, and was going to book two others this week. Of course I will now wait until October 27.
Any chance we can get the 75K before October 27 (for a flight in December)?

THANK YOU!!! for 100% EQMs regardless of booking channel.

Full EQM on CO flights on discount fares is nice. The missing fine print about discount fares on *A partners - which I'm sure they can't talk about yet - is the elephant in the corner here.

Overall, pretty positive - except for those of us who could work the co.com booking system to our advantage to get what we wanted, and were therefore a higher elite status than some who flew more than us... :)

Holy cow. I just looked at the list and have to give CO a huge ^^.

I'm really impressed with the changes and like all thew new benefits for Plats.

Goodby SDC fee! We'll miss ya and don't let the door hit you in the @#$ on the way out! :D

One thing I'm a bit uncertain on: what % of EQMs do C--->B fares earn?

This is great news for my plus1! ^

If you are a platinum.

WOW this is awesome!! COInsider you rock!! Every even minor issue I had is fixed and the award charts are great!!

As "O" is currently Plat BF award and the *A uses that as First what will happen with Plat BF awards?

These levels look very similar to the levels on United, and CO has stated that it does not intend to *Net block. ^ to CO!

(emphasis mine)

So we are going to get new cards this autumn?? :cool:

Overall, it's good news, but most the rewards do seem higher to me. Israel among the few exceptions... the most popular rewards, Hawaii and Europe are higher.

We had a separate thread on discussing when we get new elite cards. But this statement is pretty clear - End of Oct.

I see the issue - the word "CARD" is missing.

I suppose this is net good news, certainly for a lot of folks on this board. For this short hauler that buys a lot of MBY-Ups I am not so sure.

#2 Zero SDC fees for plats ^ (although I rarely do this.)

#4 EQM's & EQP's are back regardless of booking channel. ^^ for the folks that this effected. For me not really an issue.

#6 EQM's based on 500+ mile minimum ^^^ (I am the aforesaid short hauler)

#7 EQP's to 1.5 times rather than 2 times - Boooo! :td: Havnt done the math, but this could make a difference in elite qualifiaction for me in a future lean travel year. I assume (hope) EQM bonuses stay the same as before? (It's a long way to 2M LFM's, but I plan on getting there!:eek:)

Scott can you confirm what EQM earnings we will get for these fare types -- still 150% EQM?

Any chance you'll be offering reciprocal upgrades to *A members from others (in my case, United)?

(Realize will need a lot of work, and probably changes in MP)

True enough. I don't think CO has ever recognised VS's PE for burning miles, and for earning I know it's treated as Y. Ideally, the charts would reflect that.

Best news is number 4, ^^^good new for CO too, this policy was a revenue loser. Example, had this been announced 2-weeks ago the trip ATL-HAM-LAX I had to have our agency book would have been booked on CO instead of DL.

Thanks
 

Super changes. Thanks for the update.

Big thumbs up! ^

I'm so glad I did a status match and jumped ship from NW/DL.

Overall great news!

I am concerned about the possibility of losing 150% EQM (miles, not points) on Y,B and M fares as I might be booking more of those in the future.

I'm not thrilled at CONUS-HI mileage reqs going up, but hopefully that will be balanced by better award seat availability between CO, UA, and AC (they need to GIVE ME 80k miles to fly US to Hawai'i).

I am a little concerned about the goodness to come, though. I hope it's good stuff, but to be honest, I don't want recip upgrades for UA and especially US.

Awesome. As a soon-to-be plat I am very happy.

Have you even been on a CO flight this year :p:D

Correct me if I'm wrong here...

I don’t like the change in the redeposit fees for PE.

Currently, I can put several passengers in one reservation and not be charged to redeposit any of them because they were from my (PE) OP account.

As the new changes read, “These fees will apply per customer instead of per reservation.”
So I can redeposit my ticket without a fee, but others (even within my reservation and from my PE account) will be charged a redeposit fee.


I do like the "no Saturday Night stay required" for saver pass domestic tickets!

A few :p

But it's my CO flights for next year that I'm worrying about. :cool:

There will be no fee. The miles come from a Platinum account and they go back to the same Platinum account. There is already no change fee for tickets that come from a Platinum account, regardless of who travels. This will work the same.

Yea -- those SEA-NRT trips aren't looking quite as rewarding now...

"100% Elite Qualification Miles and Elite Qualification Points can be earned on discounted fares regardless of where the ticket is purchased or issued. "

This is effective October 27th. As in travel after Oct 27th? or Tickets issued after Oct 27th? If I buy a ticket TODAY for travel in November, on expedia in L-class will I get 100EQM? :)

Thanks for the changes, Scott. I am sure that you had a lot to do with it, so I really appreciate your efforts, and the fact that you "look out" for us.

I hope you did not pull an all-nighter writing this. Why were you posting at that hour instead of sleeping?

If you're buying the ticket yourself, I don't understand why you'd buy from Expedia, instead of CO.com just to be sure? Usually, this issue comes up when an agency has to book travel for business and can't or won't use the Continental website.

Good question... I hope they only mean EQM earnings on Acela only tickets but no change on connecting Codeshares via EWR. There really is no need to have those PHL-EWR flights which idle longer on the tarmac than the train takes from downtown Philly to EWR.. Losing EQM on those codeshares would probably be due to US Scarways wanting it like that!

Some travel sites give you more points if you buy through their site with their credit card. Or with expedia, if you book a flight+hotel you get ThankYou points. Speaking of ThankYou points, I can now use them for flying without having to worry if I'll get 100% EQM or not now! (5% mtvU card for the win)

Agree 100%.

Whilst most of the changes are good news for US-based guys (& I also applaud Scott for his marketing nous in announcing these changes so early), the overall impact on us non-US based guys seems pretty negative.

As xyzzy points out above (#27), there seems to be a drop from 200% to 125% in EQMs for pointy end fares, and the miles needed for reward tix to US (and let's fact it, we are unlikely to fly anywhere else on CO from Europe) have increased. I might benefit from the SDC free change, I guess, but that's about it. Looks like I'll find it very difficult to justify paying for the pointy end again (whether cash or reward) - and that saddens me greatly!

Sorry to be negative when so many of you seem pleased - this is just my European perspective :(

You are still better off buying direct from CO. If you need to make changes, refunds, etc. you then deal with CO. If you buy ticket from someone else then you have to deal with them for ticket changes.

Well it involves other airlines in the same itin, plus I'm using an old ticket that I have that I can't change on co.com. So I was planning on booking the CO segs in "G" to get the 100EQM, but now that they would offer 100EQM even for lower fares I could just save the $$.

Also the connecting flights I specifically want are not offered on co.com. So I either have to do it through a travel agent, or by calling CO directly. Travel is not until Nov 05-12. But I'm not sure if the tickets have to be issued after Oct 27th, or if it's just travel after Oct 27. Does anyone know?