Zeug

Hi guys,

Any other DEN/COS UA flyers here?

I live on the north side of COS and split my flights with COS and DEN. As most of my tickets are purchased the day before I travel, I have a hard time paying the extra $500 or so for COS over Denver. The DEN drive is about 1.25 hours for me, without traffic. COS is about 20 min. After $50- $100 for parking at DEN, another $40 for gas and $15 for toll roads, my threshold for COS is usually around $200.

I recently changed careers, and now work for a VC fund. This has increased my travel from once a month, to just about once a week. Mainly for face to face meetings that last an hour to 1/2 a day. Right now I am sitting at 62 segments on UA. I should be on track for 1K as my international flights are all stacked in the last half of this year.

I have noticed that DEN seems to be getting more and more RJ flights over mainline. I have had to take CRJ700s to LAX and IAH recently. Uhhg.

I also noticed that it is hard to find good mileage runs out of Denver. What is up with that?!

Anyways, just thought I would say hi and see who is in my neck of the woods.

Zeug

Tblack15

Hi Zeug,

I'm here. And yes MR's are quite difficult to find out of DEN. Although I did see an email from Fare Deal Alert of DEN-MNL.. not really looking for one as I'm going to make my target for the year. I actually booked ORD-BAH in November, and I'll just eat the positioning flight.. I did the same thing for the SEA-MXP / FLR-SEA "April P fare" this past week.

I haven't had the same issues with RJs so far.. but they did drop a few A319's on me to LAX that were scheduled as A320's.

I moved here from the Northeast, and find it VERY restricting. UA doesn't really have much incentive for aggressive pricing. F9 is the only other player and that doesn't excite me at all.

Rock214

I live in the same area but rarely fly out of COS. I'm probably a little further north of the Springs than you as it takes me about 1 hour to drive to either airport. I use The Parking Spot to park at DIA. They've got their own "frequent flier" program and especially in the winter, getting picked up and dropped off at your car is more comfortable than trudging through the peak parking lots.
98% of my flying is business. Almost all on UA, with an occasional F9 backup. I'm tall and anything over 2 hours in an RJ ruins my back, so I spend a lot of time connecting through IAH and ORD. I'll be 1K again this year, and the changes to the Mileage Plus program for next year will actually work in my favor due to the nature of the tickets I buy. I'm not UA's biggest fan, but as long as they don't convert DEN into an all RJ base, I will probably continue to keep them at the top of my list.

ButenUnBinnen

Zeug,

The good times of UA MR flights are long gone. Every now and then, you find a flight to Europe for under $1000 if you plan ahead or slightly more going to SE Asia destinations.
Some fare sales to East Coast Destinations with connectors to smaller airports also help to get 4000-ish miles for $300 or so. Look for routes that are also served by Southwest or off-beat locations like BWI, MDT, CLT... on sale

The new TSA tax does not help the pricing, but that is to be expected.
I would say that it really is no longer worth the effort for the higher status to spend the extra $500-1000 if you are close to the next status level. It used to be, but now, my Plat flying right around 10 cpm is just what I need anyway and my routes are generally competitively priced, if booked in advance.

frontrangeFF

Every time I fly into or out of DEN I am amazed at the number of UA RJs there. And how few UA mainline aircraft, and how many Southwest planes.

escapefromphl

I've been based in DEN for a little over a year now. After 7 years as a 1K, I've moved most of my flying away from UA to a mix of AA, WN and DL and may not even make Plat this year on UA. I've put about 40K miles on those other airlines combined. I have a couple of award flights booked for this year and next that in previous years I would have purchased and used GPU's to ensure re-qualification, but I really don't think 1K is worth it anymore, at least in my situation. I wouldn't have had a problem making the spend thresholds.

AA and DL have plenty of regional flights into DEN as well. I think the RJ's are just a response to demand, UA just isn't interested in filling planes with price sensitive connecting passengers. So I expect their use to increase, unless the regional pilot shortage gets worse, in which case there will just be less flights period.

I think mileage running on United is a complete waste of time, especially since I suspect that United will follows Delta's lead and move to revenue based redemption system in the next few years.

Once UA "rights ship" I could see myself spending more time with them again.

DukeofEarl

Zeug:

I think it's hard to generalize out of DEN. I fly almost exclusively mainline metal to SFO, ORD, EWR, LGA plus lots of long-haul int'l through IAD and IAH. But other colleagues fly much more domestic to smaller markets in RJ's. So if it's me, it really comes down to where the bulk of your travel is going to be.

I prefer to stick with UA being located in DEN since I've had many more easy options for int'l connections to/fr during IRROP situations. Agree RJ's are "ugh" but fortunately I'm able to avoid them for the most part.

Tblack15

Are you referring to the PQD or the RDM tables being rev based?

For me, mileage running is 80% based on status attainment/cpm, 10% on the destination, and 10% on RDM's coming back.

I'm not going for 1K so I have no problem churning the $25k spend on my Chase card to avoid the PQD.

Plane-is-home

Another DEN based flyer here (Cherry Creek).
I fly weekly and have thanks to favorable travel policy (my own) no problems achieving GS. So no need for MRs.
But I did do a DEN-COS run once to get another 2 SWUs when they had that name and were actually usable.
I have started to schedule my trips to avoid CR7 and will go out of the way to not fly CR2.

fastfxr

COS here. Been doing this for a long time it seems--15 years now, for the most part. Did 5 years splitting among the various airlines--UA, DL, AA, TWA, etc., and have now done 10 years solely UA. Wish I had done ALL of my flights with UA--I'd be at 2MM instead of just 1MM.
Flying has changed so much. It used to be mildly enjoyable, then tolerable, and now, horrible. I remember on time flights, mainline aircraft, and crews and GAs that you recognized. Aaahh...the 'golden' years, eh?


I seldom make the drive to Denver. The segment from COS to DEN gets me miles/segments and I'd rather kill 2 hours at the UC than in the car. And, often, adding the COS segment *REDUCES* the airfare. I made a reservation yesterday (for today) to YYC. From COS-DEN-YYC was $929. Direct from DEN-YYC was $1190 or something like that.

As for RJs, I refuse to fly on a 200. I figure if we all band together and avoid them, UA will get the hint and remove them from service. 700s I don't mind and 145s are reasonable if you can get 18A or at minimum an A-seat. I expect more and more RJ aircraft as this is a very cost-saving option. First class is a snack box, not a meal, and the crew is non-United, i.e. cheaper.

Oh well...lots to ..... about, not much to be positive about. Glamorous life on the road, ya know?

harryhood

Based in DEN. My work travel has increased year over year, so I started as 1P for 3 years in a row, then hit 1K last year and this year, thanks to tons of international travel in J, I am GS. We have a corporate deal with UA, so we have to use them unless price difference is noticeable.

I rarely travel domestically for business and if I do it's to a mainline destination like IAD or SFO or LAX. Personal travel also seems to route through mainline (sometimes with an RJ extension, like ORD-MBS). I have weathered 2.5 hrs on a CRJ-200 to MKE for personal travel, which is awful. I also occasional travel internationally for personal travel, all in cheapest-available Y. With a spouse and 2 kids, CPUs don't happen on personal travel, although I have used GPUs and RPUs at year end for runs to DCA/IAD when they would otherwise expire without use.

WN took share from F9 and UA, and when I have flown them I have been suitably impressed (classic case of delivering exactly what they promise), but WN gets me nothing for international travel so I load all travel (including personal) with UA to accrue, and then take advantage of, status benefits.

UA ain't great, but IME most airlines are not good to travel on, especially when IRROPS arise, so to me status takes care of those issues.

rockdoc

Live in southeast Aurora. My house to DIA is right at 20 minutes door to door straight up E-470. I have not flown an RJ out of Denver in probably five years. My flying is typically to SEA/IAH/DCA/IAD/EWR/SFO/ORD/SAN/KOA or HNL plus international. All served by mainline so I have no issues regarding RJ.

Used to fly F9 some, but have dropped them as they implement their new way of business. All others (particularly AA and DL) would require a plane change, whereas UA serves the above locations with non-stops.

hans

Bingo! Another DEN-based 1K flyer (live in Boulder County) and about 1/2 of my travel is to DC with a couple of KOA trips a year. For good or bad, the direct routing from DEN keeps me on UAL.

harryhood

Another important factor for me as well. I travel to Asia a fair amount and the DEN-NRT nonstop is a huge boon, enabling me to get to most big Asia cities (and back again) in one hop. I am hoping for a UA DEN-Europe nonstop, like the LHR nonstop that was discontinued.

TravellingMan

Based out of Boulder, just scrapped United from my list. This flying RJs for 2-4 hrs and paying $100-$400 more is just not making any sense. I pick United if it is the cheapest and quickest, else other carriers. Mileage and status are not valid anymore, so I dont bother about that at all. (thanks to United for getting me out of my addiction)

These days Southwest makes more sense to me as I get mainline aircraft nonstop to most of my destinations. It does not require one to be an elite to get service on Southwest. So I just buy in advance and with the no change fees adjust the tickets as business requires.

For International, just go with the one with the shortest connection times at the lowest price in Economy. When good Business class fares come along (YYZ-CPT-JNB-YYZ), I just buy a bunch of them for future travel.

BTW can someone shed some light on why is DEN-YYZ so expensive on all carriers, plus slim award tickets too.