Just thought I would add my experience.
I fly out of CLE mostly, so you would assume CO is my airline of choice, but because of an experience with a nightmare flight from MSY and then really bad customer service, I haven't flown continental in a long time even if it meant crj's for the first segment.
I have to say, I am not really disenfranchised with Delta, because it does work with my needs. I saw this thread and said what the heck, forwarded my delta email statement and a scan of my card, 10 minutes later , I received the welcome. WOW that was fast. I expected a reply tomorrow at the earliest or even next week, but 10 minutes is crazy fast. I should have waited till December since I should make gold by then, maybe I will divert one of my January trips to continental now, to try it again.