UA Insider

Hi Everyone, I wanted to give you a heads-up about a change to our OnePass program that will involve our EasyPass Rewards. Effective September 3, 2008, EasyPass Rewards for travel on Continental will be subject to capacity controls and may not be available on certain flights where demand is high. OnePass Elite members will be exempt from this change. This will be posted to continental.com later today. Here are some of the key details:

• OnePass Elite members will continue to be able to redeem EasyPass rewards for travel on Continental with last-seat availability – meaning if there’s a seat available on the plane you can claim it for reward travel
  
  
• For all other OnePass members, EasyPass Rewards will have some capacity controls and may not be available on certain flights where demand is high. In these cases, availability of EasyPass rewards on Continental will be based on R class availability for front cabin rewards and M class for main cabin rewards
  
  
• Until further notice, Copa Airlines will continue to offer last-seat availability for EasyPass Rewards regardless of Elite status
  
  
• Northwest Airlines and KLM will continue to offer expanded availability for EasyPass Rewards. For Northwest, EasyPass Reward availability will still be based on P and C classes for front cabin rewards and Y class for main cabin rewards. For KLM, EasyPass Reward availability will still be based on Z class for front cabin rewards and B class for main cabin rewards
  
  
• There will be no other changes with regard to EasyPass Rewards. All reward amounts will remain the same

SEAUAKID

whoa.

BlissWorld

This sounds like Delta

crnk

interesting....
Glad I'm elite now!
Also glad to see something that benefits all elites and not just plats only.

craz

Not at all. If one is a CO Elite its as if this was never announced. If 1 isnt an Elite then its worse then DL since by DL as long as a person was willing to cough up the Zillions of miles that DL wants they can get a seat.

I only hope that it will pretain to CO Elites and Not all SkyTeam Elites! Im not at all happy that CO doesnt rule out DL Elites as DL seems always to not include CO Elites when they change things.

Anglo Large Clawed Otter

Glad to see CO isn't hosing its best customers, like DL did. Double hosed, as it were - it's not like redeeming sleazypass is really a bargain, in the first place.

Mackieman

Well, for those of us who are without status, this a poopie but expected move. Though, because I don't get tons of miles because I don't fly often enough to become elite, I don't usually look at EasyPass as an option because the mile cost is so high.

ctownflyer

Wow-Silver elites aren't excluded!

cova

Sounds very reasonable to me.

Non-Elites do not fly enough to earn air miles for redemption of easypass rewards. They can only earn enough miles for the high level required for easypass by large credit card purchases - most likely from their businesses. Seems reasonable to limit easypass redemption in these cases.

J.Edward

I kid, I kid!

bocastephen

This is no where near the whopper Delta brought down upon their customers. The redemption tiers remain the same, there is no mileage deflation and any Elite still has last seat access.

I'd say, assuming nothing nefarious is coming down the pike, we got off very easy.

Given what could have happened, we got a kiss from CO where Delta's customers (elites included) received a slap upside the head. Anderson must be channeling the ghost of Mullin.

Now what *could* happen behind the scenes? More award inventory directed away from standard awards and into the EP bucket - but that remains to be seen.

jonu

Unlike what US is doing with eliminating their elite mileage bonuses, I think it is smart for CO to protect their elites.

Steph3n

That is still better than the spirit of Tilton or Parker!

ssullivan

No, if it was DL, they would eliminate last-seat availability for all members, including elites. And then return it six months later at significantly higher redemption rates.

I'm not saying I'm thrilled with yet another change to OnePass, but at least this one is a decent compromise that protects CO's most frequent customers. And ^^^ to CO for including all elite levels.

SAT Lawyer

While I'm glad to see the exemption for CO elites, I think it is downright shameful that airlines have long established award redemption levels that command a hefty premium on the pretense that if there's a seat available, so too will their be an award seat, yet now, even that guarantee is being deliberately eroded.

It's amazing. WN went from offering Rapid Rewards on any flight with so much as a single seat available with only a few disclosed blackout dates to implementing capacity controls with a new "Freedom" level at double the miles. That move was widely panned by those of us who frequent WN. And yet, now, the "Freedom" award, so unwelcome when it was instituted, now appears to be better than that offered by the competition inasmuch as it will still net you a seat on any flight (except on the limited blackout dates). What a sorry statement about the state of the industry's frequent flyer programs.