Ben reports that United systemwide upgrades (SWUs) can now be applied on Continental flights. For now, you have to call to request the upgrade, but within the coming days this should be available to request online.

I gave Continental a call to see if Continental SWUs could now be used on United flights and the answer was no--at least not yet.

Tomorrow, I will walk you through how to check upgrade award space on Continental Airlines so you can know exactly whether you can confirm and upgrade on the flight you want.

As a United flyer who already has six 2012 systemwide upgrades in the bank after requalifying for 1K status in May, I look forward to trying out Continental's lie-flat beds on the 777-200s. My next trip home from Germany just might be via Houston or Newark instead of Washington or Chicago...

Good news for holders of confirmed upgrades instruments on United and Continental: your upgrade options will soon widen.

This morning I received the following e-mail from United:

We understand how important upgrades are to you. Currently, elite members of both programs enjoy unlimited upgrades on domestic flights on both United and Continental. This summer, you’ll be able to use your Regional and Systemwide upgrades on Continental flights (with a few limitations). And ...

United and Continental have made changes to their standby and same-day confirmed flight change policy that bring the two carriers closer to alignment.

Good news for Premier Executives--standby and even confirmed same-day changes are now free on United and Continental. Last year, UA begin charging Premier Execs, those who credit 50,000 or more elite qualifying miles each year to Mileage Plus, $50 to standby for an earlier flight or $75 for a confirmed change within three ...

US Airways and America West merged in late 2005. It was just on the heels of America West coming out of a four year bankruptcy and US Airways, at the time, was in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings. It sounded like a match made in heaven – two bankrupt airlines merging to make one big bankrupt airline.

All joking aside, it's been over five years now and the flight attendants from the two pre-merger airlines still work under separate contracts. In fact, the National Mediation ...

Over the past week there was some articles on how UNITED will launch a new look to it's web page.. Well, did it just happen? Did the UNITED web team update on the fly?

Here is the first update, the new logo way out of ratio:

About 10 min later this happened:

You will also notice the new UNITED Mileage Plus logo around the page.

New page title banners are also slowly showing up:

The sad thing is.. not much new, and if you are going to change your image on a web page, update it!! the old logo is still all over the place.. Do not update it part by part live and on the fly...  Really a poor way to launch your new look UNITED!

Also look for new AD's starting today with the new look for UNITED.

The dust of the merger hasn't even settled yet and already Continental and United pilots are quarreling. Let's hope this sibling rivalry is ironed out faster than America West and US Airways pilots have worked out their differences (we're still waiting on that)...

On the bright side, the area of disagreement is narrow: union leaders are at odds over how to pay pilots who fly the carrier's largest aircraft on international flights. But that ...