United and Continental to begin cross-fleeting

"I’d be willing to guarantee that this flight will now be eligible for complimentary upgrades."

hahaha. Want to bet?

Speaking of lifetime miles Lucky, will the Continental lifetime miles be added to the UA lifetime miles once the programs merge?

Biggest problem with routes for now is the lack of E+.......

only the miles you fly on CO using your CO FF number will count towards lifetime, and vice versa. that means, for the most of us who doesn't have status on both airlines its still a big minus.

Sam, you're wrong about CO lifetime status. Currently all EQMs earnt count on the CO side.

Lucky, you're wrong about the IAH-LIM route being categorized as BusinessFirst. That went away a couple weeks ago as CO loaded the winter schedule and listed a 753 starting in December.

If upgrade priority is still really a concern for you flying to FLL or PBI then look at it this way, at least you now CAN fly to those cities and have a chance at an upgrade. UA puled out years ago and left you with zero options. Now you have an option. ANd your initial reaction is that you don't like your priority in the upgrade queue?? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

Wandering Aramean - well since you are a CO plat and have higher UG priority, of course you'll think that way about lucky's reaction.

@ LIH Prem -- Depends, what's at stake? 😉

@ Carl -- This for me is another point of frustration. On Continental, all elite miles count towards million miler, while at United, only butt in seat miles count. So the frustrating thing is that if I fly Continental metal now, not only will it not count towards my United million miler status, but I highly doubt it will count towards my combined million miler status either. That being said, I'm less worries about them changing the million miler program, since Premier Executive has essentially been "downgraded."

@ Andy -- Excellent point.

@ Wandering Aramean -- It's not about whether or not an upgrade clear, it's about the fact that the priority doesn't make sense. Why doesn't Continental keep their planes flying out of their hubs, and United keeps their planes flying out of their hubs. I understand United currently doesn't serve the market, but customers would be better served with United operating an A320 or A319 than a Continental plane.

"I’d be willing to guarantee that this flight will now be eligible for complimentary upgrades"

Lucky, can you at least fact check yourself? Last time I checked, Lima, Peru is in South America, which is in Region 2, not Region 1. Since this is an UA flight, UDU does not apply, and either SWU or miles are required for upgrade.

So, what's my compensation from the gurantee? 😉

@ ptahcha --There aren't any facts yet. I'm willing to bet, though, that UA will offer UDU to LIM. I do understand that Lima isn't technically in region one, though!

@ptahcha - use common sense. UA is not going to ask for SWUs or miles to upgrade a domestic 767 aka the "Ghetto Bird"

Why would "customers" be better served by a UA A319/320 on the route? If there are no CO elites in the hub anyways then the priority doesn't matter as all zero CO platinums will be upgraded and then all the 1Ks and 1Ps will have at the inventory. Not to mention that the 737s being used have much larger F cabins which will increase the upgrade chances.

They're all one big happy family now. There is no such thing as "my" hub or "your" hub. Time to accept that and realize that the only way for the airlines to actually realize all the expected benefits from the merger is to actually merge operations. This is a start. They're putting the correct equipment on the routes that need it. Not really all that hard to understand actually.

I agree that the priority is a bit stilted but it cuts both ways. Overall it averages out just fine and folks will do just fine. Honestly, if this the "most frustrating" thing you have to deal with in the merger you're doing pretty darn well.

@ Wandering Aramean -- As long as I'm not earning lifetime miles, I'm not flying anything but former United metal. It's easier for Continental since all EQMs count towards lifetime status. But with United, they only count flights on United metal, and I can't imagine they'll go back and add miles that were flown on Continental... I doubt they even have the capability of doing that!

Like many others, I avoid CO like the plague due to no E+ and no UA lifetime miles. That said, I don't mind "cross-fleeting" as defined in this post, especially on completely new routes. As long as you know in advance that the operating carrier will be CO, the trade-offs are transparent.

But in my mind, "cross-fleeting" conjures a the specter of CO metal unexpectedly showing up on a "UA-operated" flight (which UCH legalese seems to suggest is possible) . I might still get lifetime miles with the UA flight number, but not E+ if I'm not upgraded.

@Wandering Aramean - yes the "priority is a bit stilted" because as a 1K at the new airline I should trump a CO plat who flies 75K a year...simple as that 😉

@Reader

I think it makes sense as CO does have to give priority to its own customers. Until UA/CO stop operating separately, it would be kind of insane for the CO's top earners to not have the highest upgrade priority when flying their own airline in favor of UA 1K's who might have never set foot on CO metal before. This is especially true when you consider the fact that many CO Plats fly more than 100k miles. As a CO Plat with 150k CO miles flown last year, it would piss me off if a UA 1K with 100k miles all on UA got upgrade priority over me on CO. It's bad enough that UA 1Ps get priority over me on UA.

@lucky if they can add Lima to Region 1, they can certainly add historical miles to lifetime miles count. (Touche!)

@Reader re: UA not asking for SWU for domestic 767 - why not? AA uses a domestic 757 for its Bolivia flights, and you can't use e-500's on that route. What AA does, UA mimics.

Great examples Lucky - thanks for linking to the FT threads. More nails in the coffin for those CO loyalists who continually deny the systemic TOD upgrade scheme.