This entire premise is horse crap.

I am top tier in all three of the major alliances.

ST, *A, and OW all have good and poor carriers.

Malev and Iberia are not exactly top tier products, in fact, BA is not that great anymore. The food in QF's longhaul F was terrible 3 weeks ago.

I am convinced that those who insist on proclaiming the qualitative superiority of one alliance over another have very little comparitive experience to base their opinions.