Also, I searched several individual airline and hotel fora with regards to comping members of other programs; however, my question is more a general one as I am thinking about doing a RTW either on Oneworld or with the CO/NW/KL etc. alliance, and the question of whether I will be granted elite status from the beginning will be one of the factors that will weigh into my decision whether to go on Oneworld or CO/NW/KL.

So I am basically looking at a lot of airlines and also hotel programs and not only at one or two particular ones - one or two out of both different alliances and one or two hotel programs would be enough, but I am not set on any particular airline only.

I have already tried to contact some of those airlines myself and have received mixed responses. AA said they would only comp UA members. KLM said first they would not do it, but they would credit people for the last two months of flights they have done in their other elite program (which sounded really weird to me), after calling again, another agent said he never heard of any such thing (didn't even know about the big promo that I missed, unfortunately). With some other airlines, I will fax in my last LH statements and will wait and see what they decide.