Would any OW airlines status match our Star Alliance Gold cards? I have Gold from Air Canada, my wife from Asiana. The OW equivalent seems to be sapphire status

We are a retired couple. We usually pay economy fares. We have taken 3 Star RTWs (the shortest - 26,000 miles) over the past few years plus many trips YYZ-LHR and to Ireland.

We are interested in lounge access/priority checkin and baggage, primarily, and retaining status in future years.

I expect we would wait to late 2009 to join the programme, and do a OW RTW then. But I would prefer to know if we could get lounge access/priority checkin if we buy an economy fare before doing the detailed planning.

If so, how do I go about it?