Ah do we need more? ;) ;)

While we're throwing wishes out...I'd like it to be based on segments as I will hit about 220 segments but only about 150K miles......


So...heres to 2008 and my wishes!

wow philly, you spend more time in airports connecting than you do on the planes :) 220 seg's is amazing ^

I guess for me, I throw the $$$ around... UA get's my Int'l (well SQ gets a nice piece too ;) )and I get SWU's from them... NWA takes care of me domestically and thats where those $$$ go. I guess I'm one of those who doesnt put all my eggs in one basket and get the added benefits of both programs.

The chart is forthcoming, but you can sign-up for the promo using the US site until the full promo info is posted on the seperate asian sites.

^ I thought I might get a soft landing from NW. (nope) So looks like one basket this year. Since I dont travel on biz. I have the ability to DO NO travel and burn miles and then slam out 100k in Jan at bargain fares and make top tier "somewhere" for 2 years. YMMV :) as far as this forum, I think it's great to have folks that are top tier, many year flyer's on more than one airline. Keep's thing's in perspective. One glove doesn't fit all, but it's nice to have experienced travelers post that have been on both sides of the fence. :)

I totally agree with that zipper. While NW is excellent for free & high percentage of domestic UG's, AA & UA have compelling perks (6+ SWU's) for their Elites traveling Int'l.

Obviously NW knows that, so kuddos to them for at least trying something to get a little bit of the AA & UA business. Combine the SWU with the improved WBC on the A330 and soon the 787 and NW is becoming competative.

(Personally, I will never earn the SWU's on NW, the bar is just way too high, but as with most things NW is good at fine-tuning the WP program and I hope they will make it easier for Elites to "sample" the renewed WBC sooner than later.)

AA offers completely free domestic upgrades (exactly like NW) for EXP's (100,000 points or 100,000 BIS miles), including Hawaii flights.

NW remains a strong program for domestic flying mid-tiers -- I would never argue with that.

Steve

How are your Ted upgrades going? ;)

;) ;) ;) ;)

I think that rwill11 never steps on a Ted plane. :D

I am surprised how many supporters of UA's C product there are. I really could care less which airline I wind up on, but I have to say that paying for UA C is absurd to me. It's a terrible seat across the fleet and the A/V system is an antique. Even given the option of upgrading to UA C with SWU, I'd rather use miles on NW and pay a slightly higher Y fare for pretty decent availibility. I see the different treatment b/t NW and UA of their C product vis-a-vis SWUs as something that they might (rightly) base on the quality of their product. If you fly NW C a lot you wont be seeing a ton of empty C seats. UA on the other hand, they can absorb an entire NW misconnect in NRT! And they op-up me (and my wife who has no UA status) as a courtesy on HKG-SIN because it's so empty. I would rather pay US$2k for Y tix on NW and upgrade and keep our business there, or even slightly more for C (which is possible ex-Asia), so UA's SWUs havent really been tugging at us at all b/c we have no desire to do 100k on UA metal. Maybe if we always flew paid C and then used SWUs to get into F. From Y to C, I think NW is a better product for the money and for the day in and dy out confirmed availability of upgrades.
I look at the NW move as a great one, mostly from the standpoint that this is just a (realistic) recallibration of PlatPoints. I really wonder how much money the airlines make off people who complain about SWUs, I see that NW is doing a pretty good job selling out seats in C without them, so I'm not sure why they need to throw much more of a bone than this.

I think NW is just looking to retaining there own high level elites past 100K and possibly grow some Int routes in the process. To your point, they do a very good job of selling the C product (it is superior to any other US carrier I believe) but with a bunch of elites sticking around for Int travel they may be able to grow some of the Asia and Europe routes based solely on WBC sales.

I've done quite a few, they are not as bad as most people make out. nice new clean planes. I never take any of the long flights, just IAD-florida it's only an hour and a half and they always give us an exit row with a blocked middle seat. I actually prefer these seats since they have more space than FC on the 319's and 320's. I have long legs. :) when I travel to fla. I have an option of mainline 757's or a 767 in C to IAD an then a TED hop. I usually choose the later since the TED flight is short.

...which also have exit rows and bulkheads in coach. And a FC cabin with wider seats, more legroom, free drinks, snacks, and meals at mealtime. You can't simply wash away the Ted flights as if they don't count. They can't compare. They're basically larger RJs flying longer routes. You're not getting off that easy. ;) UA cannot compare to NW in this regard.