Currently, I'm a very unhappy CO Gold elite member. I'm more than little sick of CO screwing me out of 50% of the EQM's for booking through a travel agent and really hate that their fees are now the highest in the industry. I guess Larry needs more money to make his teeth bigger, but I digress.

I fly out of SEA, so I'm looking to change to either Alaska's program or Delta. My ideal would be NW's program, but sadly it's going away. I mostly fly on AS with occasional international trips or a trip to the east coast. There will be generally one long trip to the east coast on CO and I have no choice about this.

Most my flights are around the Pacific coast of the US and by flight frequency I fly AS 80% of the time. Delta and AS have announced reciprocal upgrades. I'm thinking that each program's gold members will be upgraded after the other's. By going with AS, I would get upgraded on them a lot and occasionally on DL and vice versa.

My two options are:

Delta
- Better international presence
- Platinum status
- Lounge membership that is valid anywhere I will fly
- Future reciprocal upgrades announced, but not sure what they will be

Alaska
- Upgraded more frequently
- Will be able to get points from CO flight and probably use CO lounge in such cases
- International lounges may not be an option
- Recriprocal upgrades on DL
- Can fly on AS, DL, CO and AA

I'm leaning towards AS and want to status match right away, but I don't have complete information around the upgrades. Anyone have any input?