Just got this week a little but oh so important perk of status....got in the mail a real Summit card! Not the embarrassing little printed one from their website, but one that looks pretty much like any other airline's! Bonus: got an imprinted luggage tag (one) along with it. Nice, and moves them out of mickey mouse status for those with status, and into the bigger leagues.

Then for another sign of improvement, went to book flights this week and earlier entered info about DOB were retained. Finally! Had to email FF desk to get gender added too, along with some other fixes, but hey, it's a start.

Now onto the negative: availability of free seats is still low but appears to be improving. Checked out some random summer dates to places like SFO, ANC, DCA, and found some seats at 20K, more at 40K. Before, seemed nothing was available to any desirable city. Lack of any available calendar instead of "no seats are available" would be a pretty logical next step?

So in a week, 2 good improvements and one partial. Let's keep the tales on F9, and see where they take us into 2010.

i know it was nice to see the real card. Also, I through in a hint to rent the old CO Preseidents Club in Councourse A

We also received the new cards. However, I wish that F9 would come up with a way to allow you to swipe the card in the LiveTV set. It would also be nice to swipe it so you could check-in for a flight.... A few years back, the summit cards had magnetic strips on the back, but they have since vanished...

Interesting idea, for those who are honest. Can you imagine someone of lesser ideals handing their card to the last 5 rows of seats?! Sure, there might be a way to limit it to 1x/flight, but anything that seems easy when it comes to IT issues, it's not!

I'd like it to be able to swipe in at kiosks, but that's pretty rare for me.

I just got my Ascent card (and luggage tag) a week or two ago, as well. Given that everyone's came so late, it almost feels like sending out an actual card was an afterthought, but it was appreciated! ^

I don't think it would be possible with their current IT setup. I recall a thread from a while ago that the credit card charges for TV (and buy on board) were batch processed at some point after the flight, allowing unscrupulous people to "buy" their TV and snacks with depleted prepaid credit cards. I have to believe this is also the reason the FAs control the card that is used to swipe for free TV - it's certainly a clunky solution and hardly ideal, but there's no better option to keep the card from being overused.

Now, I have had flights where an FA got the list of Ascent & Summit and went through and activated everyone's TV before boarding began - that was very nice.