Probably. Just as they seem to have (finally) figured out the status match abuses.

They seem a bit naive about the entire FFP thing.

It seems like less of an abuse than, say UA golds who status match to get UA club access then never fly CM.

They can also just let it run its course - since people who status match in and fly copa will need to credit to copa to maintain status, those who don't lose status in Feb 2017.

Given the relative upgrade potential, if you say fly 25K a year 80%UA 20%CM, it might be more valuable to go for CM Prefer Silver than UA Premier Silver since UA Silvers basically never get upgraded.

It's pretty similar. CM has to pay UA for the UA miles that people are earning on the tickets where they switch FF# after getting the CM upgrade. I guess CM is getting some ticket revenue, but by definition these are economy tickets we're talking about.

Good point. And they are paying based on miles flown not ticket price, and they also don't prioritize upgrades based on fare class like UA.

I'm interested to see if they keep offering such great deals now that their stock is recovering from the nearly 60% drop it suffered over the summer.

True. I just got an email from them saying they've stopped and will come up with some other way of doing this. Said I should contact them again at the end of the year.

The airline can afford the hit: because these business seats would otherwise be empty most likely. It likely will have nil impact on costs. While there are fliers that would abuse the *G privileges for domestic lounge access, some people will fly Copa and will never have considered them before.

What it screws over though are the actual frequent fliers with Copa who credit their miles to them. They have to compete against elites who are there just for the upgrades. In other words, it devalues the FFP. This is less of a problem in other status match programs where there are no upgrades involved. But this should all be over in 2017 when most expire.

You're forgetting that CM has to purchase the UA miles from UA (as opposed to just giving away its own). So these little FF# games will necessarily have an effect on CM's costs.

Additionally since they are clearing upgrades before buy-ups, which start at $200 per leg, they are forgoing real revenue on the upgrades.

Any sense on how much this is? Looking at financial statements for some other airlines, it looks like about half a cent per mile which would be only tens of dollars per flight.

i wonder, and i guess this isn't just re CM, but is it cheaper for them to buy the miles when we credit to partners, or use their own miles to get an award ticket on a partner?

There's an element of speculation here, but I'm pretty sure the actual cost is will be higher to purchase miles from another carrier. There's going to be a pretty significant breakage allowance for their own miles (i.e., allowance for miles that are never used). And their *A redemption chart is not particularly generous.

Why didnt you just send in your AA card to begin with?!

Well, to be honest: I'm quite a lazy person, and as I don't use the physical card that much I had it at somewhere the bottom of "that one drawer" we all have. On the other hand the other two cards I had already scanned for various reasons so well, I just went with them.

CPU Z Class
 

Since CM uses Z Class for CPU's, does anyone know how to search for the fare class like "expert mode" on UA? I have a trip next week and curious to know how things look.. Thanks and Safe Travels

I've used ExpertFlyer for this -- they have a 5 day trial of you're not a member.

What I've noticed in looking at Copa's Z class in ExpertFlyer is that it seems to always show zero availability, at least on the flights I've been on in the past three months. I've seen this over a week in advance, and even just in the days before a flight.

But, I'm 18/18 so far on upgrades under the ConnectMiles program, so it doesn't seem to be an issue. Sometimes, I've gotten upgrade notice 72 hrs in advance (I've got Platinum status), but other times it's barely over 24 hrs. I haven't figured out yet how Copa manages this inventory.