So, United wants $79 to upgrade me to FC on CLE-ORD. Or, get this, I can pay $550 + 20,000 miles. I'm torn between which option to take. :D

Have to say I’m pretty pleased UA is extending my general member status through 2021.

It's the least they could do...

Spent Sunday afternoon "breezing" through this classic thread and laughing. I miss the good odious days.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/cont...ulence-15.html

Here I go again. I so don't want to be the old man who extols bygone days, but wasn't the Continental camaraderie/tomfoolery grand in those good ol' days. Who's with me?

RNE, waxing nostalgic.

So many online discussion forums have gone this way. A couple of the hobby discussion forums I used to frequent were full of characters that didn't take themselves too seriously (nor did others), although all the inside jokes took a while for a newbie to figure out. There was poking, prodding, "don't feed the trolls", and a general camaraderie that is uncommon today as the risk of offending others, and the risk of being blocked/cancelled, has risen. One forum had a link to "The Rulez" and the icon was Skeletor. These fun forums are mostly gone now, replaced with the massive centralized social media platforms that do a poor job of indexing, categorizing, and sorting discussions. Little actual discussion occurs on these new platforms, having been replaced with emojis and likes, until the next topic pops up, only to be deprecated quickly as the masses move on to the next shiny thing.

The forums that remain have become more "professional" and tolerate almost no joking, with sometimes-heavy moderation preventing opinion sharing and banter. But it's not all bad. At least there's an outlet here (OMNI) where the silliness can continue for those that enjoy it.

Hey, RNE -- I saw this in CA the other day and thought of you. I guess y:pu have a fan club!


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...93be46f1a8.png

I think you are thinking way, way back, because IIRC even CO forum cut out some of the tomfoolery well before the merger.

Still well recall that old seatback reclining thread where (paraphrasing from memory) "I will beat you up if you would recline your seatback into my personal space" discussion that went on :eek:

I also recall that you and I had about the same amount of posts back then for quite a while :)

Sadly so, but still, we had our time in the sun, didn't we? There was a siege mentality among CO flyers and our cozy 3-hub airline. And good-natured ribbing went all around. New Yorkers made fun of Cleveland's "skyscrapers" (all three of them). Clevelanders explained to Houstonians what a basement was. They in turn made fun of us Midwestern bumpkins. And New Yorkers themselves pilloried EWR, not to mention bearing the shame of it being in (gasp) New Jersey.

RNE, recalling with particular fondness the ridicule heaped on Lawrence "Lar' Baby" Kellner.

Howdy Penalty box

Where are the ice cubes? ;)

I like to have lots of ice with my drinks. Lots of it. In this sense, I’m very much not European.

On a recent flight I had a great F/A who immediately understood when I asked for “extra ice” and an “extra cup of ice”. Figuring I would have less luck on the next flight in a Fauxlaris cabin, I nestled a little blue cup full of ice into my bag at the ORD C gates UC and made it onboard without spilling a single ice cube.

I do believe one of my seatmates was giving me a look, wondering how I managed to get a PDB. This could be a solution to our catering woes on UA: bring your own glassware, water, ice, and beverage. Perhaps UCs could be pressed into service, but first they would have to stop having the Coke machines out of order more often than not.

Sometimes if one wants something done right, it is best to do it oneself. 🙂

I used to use the "stacked blue cups" trick at the United Club to bring home yoghurt-covered raisins for my two sons. They were always asking when my next trip was. 🤠

:rolleyes: Yawn :rolleyes:

I can't believe this thread still exists.

Good ol' Box. It takes a lickin' but keeps on tickin'.

Where did you think it w:puld it go?

The penalty box of course.

Perhaps time to revive the :rolleyes:

:D

Seeing this thread alive again has brought me out of Flyertalk retirement. I have missed the fun we had here and all my "old" friends.

You retired? I thought they had just locked y:pu in the SFO basement!

Very, very long story. Remember when you had to wheelchair me around the Boeing Factory tour? Well, it turned out that my C4-6 vertebrae were compressing my spinal cord. I had to have neck surgery and have spacers placed into the vertebrae but the nerve damage was done but I was no longer being threaten with becoming a quadriplegic. I did the rehab to come back to work but was deemed only fit to work at the Customer Service Center. A few years later, I asked for another reasonable accommodation and was turned down by Corporate Medical and local management. I had already been given a reasonable accommodation of a chair without wheels, so my feet could touch the ground but now my doctor requested a keyboard at ergonomic height-denied. Other factors included the local SFO supervisors that were very poor at their jobs, such as missing in action, clueless in what to do, other departments never following up on providing the Customer Service Center with tools to do the work, such as keeping the Center supplied with overnight kits, blankets, stocked amenity carts and communicating about potential miss connecting customers or flights cancelling. I just couldn't keep fighting a never ending work battle called United after all those years of working as a Continental agent with lots of management support. So I retired in 2017 with 32+ years.

What ever happened to Cigarman (who arranged the Dos) and Fly Continental to See the Yanks (who set a record for being banned)?

I am sorry for all of your back issues, and I am hoping you are enjoying a very happy retirement!
But I think Continental (Smisek) was more the downfall/rough times than UA was. Not to start a new debate. A Texas regional airline swallowing way too much!

All the best in your future!

I miss Continental -- particularly making fun of "Lar' Baby." What a lummox.

RNE, noting that I retired in 2016 after 38 years. Now, I lay about while TSMRSRNE continues to work. Ah, the good life. :D

Thank you, and yes I am enjoying my retirement. I see that you are GS so you would be more of a United fan, however Continental was not a regional airline. Smisek tried to do the job he was tasked to do but mixing oil and water was one hell of a mountain to climb. There was quite a lot that the public never saw or knew about.

I want to know where are all the old Boxers? I see very few names that I recognize on the United forum.

Glad you are enjoying your retirement :tu:

There's RNE and of course myself, a longtime CO posters :) Though due to some circumstances I was in process of switching to UA, mostly because they had SWUs, and CO did not. And then there was that CO NW divorce where CO lost all those Asia destinations :(

But ya, a lot of former regular posters are not posting to UA, though I seem to recall that at least some gave up on merged UA and either stopped flying UA or just stopped posting.

Indeed. And while my glory is legendary and sung among the lurkers of Rohan, none compare to XYZZY. Mark my words, my friends: XYZZY was here before the airfields and the airports; XYZZY remembers the first windsock and the first taxiway. He made runways before the engineers, and saw the pilots arriving. He was here before the Wright Brothers. When the airmen passed westward, XYZZY was here already, before the skies were bent. He knew the dark under the hanger when it was lantern lit - before the Smisek came from Mordor where the shadows lie.

RNE, paraphrasing JRRT.

I've been here a while -- but not THAT l:png...

I think I asked you about this once a couple years back and don't remember but when did FT come into existence? I thought I saw members dating back into the 90's?

It was bef:eek:re me ... 1998 IIRC.

As I understand it, Randy Peterson had a newsletter (via snailmail), and at one point started this website (both before my time).

Every once in a while you may come across a poster with "Original Member" - see when they joined, and that is start of FT online.

(Wikipedia has an FT page, alas no original date / date of first post) Update, found it: Founded 1998 according to Wikipedia

Winner winner chicken dinner

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlyerTalk

We need a good ol' fashioned meet in a CO Presidents Club :)

We are still around and I can be found from time to time on the Delta forum. However the years are catching up to both of us, retirement happened last year, and we are not traveling a anywhere near a much a when we were working.
Hanging out ipn the South Florida weather has become more and more appealing so we are not getting up to NY very much in the winter.

​​

You mean a "Do". ;)

Your place in Florida is so nice, I'd hang out there too. Happy retirement to you too. Isn't it nice to not have to do anything on a time table.

Wouldn't that be wonderful? I got involved with some events that UA did but they tended to be small ones. Cigarman did show up for the one at ORD but he wasn't impressed-how could he be after starting the DO's. I'm not so sure the "New" United is or able to pull off an event like the old CO DO's. I wonder if Air Canada and Scott O'Leary is doing them?

Sadly, n:(. But he and some of the old CO crew do seem happy at AC.

Ah, yes, the infamous TED, also known as "the end of United."