This may not be 100% accurate, but you'll get the gist.
You get unlimited travel passes for those on your JA profile. This includes you, your spouse, your children (up to 18 years old, I think) and your parents. Instead of a spouse, you can designate a companion but that person is on your JA for the entire year. So there's no switching if you break up with your girfriend/boyfriend. If your parents are divorced, you can only pick one parent/step parent combo. You can always rotate every year to keep it equitable.
Domestically, the passes cost $10 for each direction plus tax, which is $2.50. So a round trip costs $25. This is a space-available (standby) ticket in coach and priority is based on your pass rider status and your hire date. As a pilot, of course, you can request the jumpseat and fly for free. You can also buy first class passes but don't bother because domestically Continental always fills up First by upgrading paying passengers. You'll almost never fly first domestically on a pass.
You also get 12 vacation passes per year to be used by those on your JA profile. These are good for anywhere CAL flies, including international. Better yet, you don't pay the fee and travel at the highest standby priority level. Also, internationally they don't upgrade passengers automatically, so if there's room up front, you get to fly first.
You also get 20 buddy passes per year, which you can give to anyone, but they're not a good deal. For coach, it's $50 one way and they travel at the lowest priority level. Unless they need to go somewhere at the last minute and the loads look good, I always tell people to pay a little more and buy a real ticket with a guaranteed seat.
The whole pass travel thing is a little more complicated that this, and there are certain caveats I haven't mentioned, but this should give you an idea.
As far as the commuter policy, we have one but I don't know how well it works. My advice is don't depend on it.
