Comments on: What United / Continental Tie-up Means for You

By: Buckeye27

Buckeye27 — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 17:51:44 +0000

CO is my favorite…..but use NWA to places CO can’t get to…..and rates on CO from CLE are very high …..

Heard a lot of bad stuff about UA and USAir, which will be my new Star options; so trying to bump that against possible NWA and Delta….with Delta as my Medallion acct…

Every NWA flight I am on, I get bumped to First, and although not as nice as CO, seating is great vs coach and all flight crew has been very nice….

Guess I’ll stick with CO and future Star for a year and tryout UA and USAir as options to CO on those places not served well by CO…

thanks

By: Gary

Gary — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 16:26:13 +0000

Skyteam is terrible.

By: Buckeye27

Buckeye27 — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:52:48 +0000

But is future Star Alliance with CO a better bet than SkyTeam Delta/NWA; and change my frequent flyer program to Delta?

By: Gary

Gary — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 07:30:57 +0000

CO becomes more valuable not less with Star Alliance. Yes, US Airways is in Star Alliance. UA’s domestic first class is better than NW’s but not as nice as CO’s.

By: Buckeye27

Buckeye27 — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 07:01:59 +0000

I am based in CLE, and use DTW and CMH.

By: Buckeye27

Buckeye27 — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 06:59:22 +0000

I am a Platinum CO One Pass.
I fly most 48 states, primarly New England, SouthEast, Florida and SouthWest states; and Arizona and SoCal, escpecially San Diego, Plam Springs and LAX.
Never international, except Toronto, so I don’t care about flights to Europe or Asia.
Have interest in Hawaii.

My questions?
1.) Do I stay with CO, or make strategic move to Delta/NWA and work to Medallion with Delta?
Or do I stay with CO, and partner up on the UA Star program….Is USAir in STAR?

2.) What is First Class like on UA and USAir in comparison to CO and NWA?

3.)

By: Nari

Nari — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:16:17 +0000

You are right on the mark saying that Skyteam is the stingiest airline group to redeem miles on. NWA/DAL suck. I have nt had much experience on CO. Of course now DAL/NWA are merging so their tough to get awards will become tougher.
Oh well. Thanks for the discussion of elite comparisons.

By: Seth

Seth — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:31:12 +0000

@Nope:
CO loses AF/KL/AZ/OK as European-based carriers and gains LH/LX/LO/TK. That really isn’t a terrible swap and doesn’t really kill the options all that badly.

@Gary:
Redemption on TATL summer flights in J isn’t terrible, especially using AF as a partner. They actually make a pretty reasonable amount of inventory available. I cannot speak to whether it is more or less than LH does, and one cannot book F seats using OnePass miles, but it isn’t all bad.

By: Gary

Gary — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:56:38 +0000

You’ll never see as many premium class seats available across the Atlantic as are offered by Star Alliance member Lufthansa. And Swiss and Austrian aren’t bad for this either. As long as Continental doesn’t block its members from redeeming awards being offered by other airlines, this will be a huge increase in award availability.

And the idea that currently using CO miles for transatlantic *premium cabin* award travel during the summer is somehow easy (except at the easy pass level) is just silly.

By: Nope

Nope — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 02:06:28 +0000

Totally wrong…. I’ve had no problem redeeming even awards to Europe during the summer with Continental, using either NW, DL, AF, or CO.. that is a LOT of choices to Europe. Anyway, anyone with UA miles who is in ‘burn mode’ (as they should be because UA product stinks) is now going to be burning those miles for CO seats. What do OnePass members get? Less flexibility to Europe, and the only new option is United, well whoop de do, lest I repeat myself, their product stinks on ice.