+1, although get ready for some UA flyer bashing.

 

Of course - remember, there hasn't been a Single. Enhancement. Yet. for 1Ks/GS', only degradations.

I mean, any airline that will sell an F seat all-in (base fare + buy-up) for $200 and change on a 1,000 mile flight to non-Elite, while over a dozen Elites languish on the waitlist, SURELY is an airline to profess your loyalty to and of course is superior. That's a change long-time UA loyalists are just thrilled about, sell-out your loyal flyers for a few bucks.

 

While the outside sheen may be Delta, the core of the organization is absolutely NW, with the redtail's operational and financial philosophy determining the course of operations.

For all of AA's perceived strengths in elite recognition, it certainly lags in generating elite yields...

 

The ff philosophy, however, is pure DL. As someone who has been both a DL elite and a NW elite, it is hard to miss the stench of the DL ff attitude.

 

Was a "charter" Diamond on DL and bailed for the second time from DL to CO shortly before the "merger" was announced. The positives for DL were the ease of earning elite status and virtual assurance of domestic upgrades. The downsides were exorbitant TATL business class fares and poor usability of any mileage for awards - esp. TATL upgrades, which are very important for me. I have found that it is much harder to "earn" status on CO - will barely make Gold this year with similar travel, but don't miss the bait and switch mentality of DL as I slowly sink into the sunset on their soft landing elite program. Still Platinum but only use them for award travel - when I can get it. Ironically, I moved from Columbus, OH where there is no hub and one can chose airlines to PHX where US and WN are the primary carriers. I tried WN but did not like it and have been using US a lot booking miles on CO. The cross benefits from CO to US are poor, and Mrs. Remedy and I are both likely to switch to the US program after this year even though it gets bad reviews. We want the benefits of being elite flyers on the airline that we are increasingly using (upgrades, better seats, early boarding and priority luggage handling). We fly from PHX-CMH a lot.

 

Wow, if this thread makes anything clear it's this: no matter how much griping the UA people are doing about $misek and the TATL 757s, and the CO people are complaining about the "old UA hags" etc, this merger is light years ahead of what happened with DL/NW.

Consolidation isn't going to make anyone happy but at least we're just getting some negatives, not all negatives.

 

As a former NW PE I believe this merger is going a lot better than DLNW ever did. I actually made a decision to stick with Delta for a year after the merger and maintained my PE status with DL right before they introduced Diamond. I could easily reach Diamond as well but started to see that the merged airline is not turning to the better and made a conscious decision to switch to UA. As a 1P I am treated to what NW GE used to be treated like, which is not bad (not excellent, but not bad), and as I am on my way to 1K this year, I expect the treatment to be that of how NW PE's used to be treated, which is great.

I love the ability to redeem on *A partners and to have amazing flexibility with my awards in terms of redemption (using ANA tool primarily). On DL its next to impossible. Also, I like my Z fares on UA, similar fares on DL are about 75% higher at this point.

I also got CO PE comped last year before one could get an automatic match by synching the accounts, and as a CO PE I feel I am getting treated very well. Overall, I think UACO merger is going a lot better than DLNW merger went, and although there are some changes to the UA program I am not loving, overall it could have been a lot worse based on what I witnessed at as a result of DLNW.

 

DL blew it completely with the immediate invocation of "The Largest Airline in the World" and "Best in Class Loyalty Program." Both monikers were followed by a stodgy bumbling airline that destroyed its existing as well as NW's legacy loyalty programs with hyperinflation.

I think that CoNited has been much more careful about what they promise. There also haven't been the gutting of benefits and the mileage requirement hyperinflation that destroyed DL's loyalty program. I laugh when I see on the UA board about long-time UA flyers in a huff and threatening to bolt to DL. The first time they try to book an international flight with SkyMiles, they'll realize their mistake (e.g. as in my recent experience 120K SFO-NRT for DL in Y. 130K SFO-NRT for UA in F....not J).

We'll see if the trend continues.

To me, the "old UA hags" are the planes. I've never seen duct tape used to "repair" airplanes. And it's not here and there, it's been on all of the UA planes I've been on so far. I hope CO influences this and gets the "old UA hags" detailed in a big way. I seriously doubt legacy UA diehards will object to such a decision, even if "$mi$ek" makes it.

 

Seriously? I'd venture I've flown at least 10x the UA aircraft you have in the last year, and I think I saw duct tape a total of ZERO times. I see the little red stickies in the lavs all the time (what's the point?) but NEVER seen duct tape.

If you've seen it on ALL the planes you've been on, that's some statistical odds!

 

He's probably referring to speed tape, not duct tape. It's industry standard for small repairs, although UA has used it improperly in the past.

 

As a former NW plat, I have to vehemently disagree with this assessment. The combined airline is still more DL than NW, but not as bad as it was in the year after the merger. In the year after the merger DL *DESTROYED* the NW FF program, website, and lounges. They've rolled back or fixed some of that since so it's not as bad as it used to be, but initially it was very bad and it still isn't as good as it used to be.


So far with CO/UA, I'd say the programs are, overall, as good as they were before the merger. Some aspects of each are not as good, some are better, but I have not noticed any major changes on the CO side beyond the promise of E+. The rest of the changes don't really register in comparison to some of the things DL did to NW.


I think CO/UA management may have noticed the number of NW elites that matched over to CO in that merger and decided not to repeat DL's errors.

 

No. It was definitely duct tape that was taping that baby changing table to the bulkhead on a "ghetto bird" (as I've come know the moniker of the substandard UA aircraft of this type). I'd bet my next paycheck that the duct tape is still there 6 weeks later, too.

Are you also going to say that DL's customer service indicators are currently at the bottom of the dumpster because of the comparatively low number of legacy NW elites?

 

+1. Well said.

 

CO/UA definitely had the benefit of seeing an awful merger and learning greatly from it.

If the order of mergers was reversed, I'm sure CO/UA would have made far more mistakes, and DL would have had a much smoother ride.

 

I would disagree with the generous sentiment in your last paragraph. SkyMiles management is just plain mendacious. Take-aways are done in the dead of night with nothing posted on DL's (pathetic) website, phone agents just make up whatever crazy stuff they can to terminate the call, ST integration is far worse than it was in the days of the NW/KL JV, and there is no honest engagement with their members.

DL's scant conversance with web-technology is a whole 'nuther kettle of fish.

This is going on 3 years after the integration, so it's not growing pains, it's the true Delta DNA that Anderson waxes poetic about.