One of my all-time favorite lines about Skyteam is "we were the kids that were picked last".  While an amusing line it is also quite true.  The carriers in Skyteam are the ones that were left out of Star and Oneworld.  Skyteam was also the last to be formed of the three.

As of 12:00am CDT earlier today, any thing related to Skyteam was being removed from Continental's website.  I have yet to run into someone, at least from the ...

Earlier this week United announced that it was going to follow the Continental model of upgrades.  Free for all elites and automatic.   Up until now United and American (with the exception of AA"s top tier) used an "instrument" based upgrade system.

The instruments used to be paper certificates on United or stickets on AA.  As technology has progressed these became virtual yet the names remained. 

Surprisingly, or perhaps not so ...

Yesterday United announced it will be implementing a complimentary upgrade scheme starting in Q2 next year. The changes will bring UA's domestic upgrade program closer to those of Continental, US Airways, and Delta.

Details:

First, this was posted on FlyerTalk yesterday afternoon:

Hello all,

We want you to be among the first to know that Mileage Plus will be introducing Unlimited Domestic Upgrades in the second quarter of 2010. 

All ...

With less than two weeks to go as a part of Skyteam, the time is ticking if you want to redeem for a Skyteam award.

Changing alliances has a bit of confusion surrounding it.  The biggest point of confusion is that some people believe they have to fly their Skyteam award by 10/24/09, which is the day Continental leaves Skyteam.  Not true, your award just needs to be ticketed by that date.

What does that mean?  You can book an award for up to 330 days out (this is the furthest out a airline reservation can be).  So if you want to book a trip for the spring or summer on Skyteam, now is the time. 

So if you wanted to book that trip to Tahiti, now would be the time.