<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Dave Noble:
You would get 8 * 1 way upgrades valid internationally and the price to purchase domestic upgrades is slightly less than for platinums. If your travel is going to be in 1st class , I would suggest keeping your BA account based in the UK for a while and getting the 3x mileage for flights and transfer it across to the US when you are wanting to use the points since the redemption costs are lower in the US ( e.g. US - Australia in 1st for 125,000 pts ).
Dave</font>
I switched my membership 2 years ago. Its actually a pretty good way of keeping Gold status: you can switch every six months, but when you do switch, your membership year restarts. Anyone ever try this several years in a row? I switched in 2000 but as a result my year only reset in 2002.
You get a better tier bonus in the NA Gold program (100%). This works out better than the UK program for most classes. In first you get 50% cabin bonus plus 100% tier bonus so you're not far off the triple you'd get in the UK program anyway. In all other classes you're ahead if your in NA.