Originally Posted by sdsearch

You've got several concepts combined, which should be separated. First, no airline "automatically upgrades" anyone. The closest is thing is that they automatically put you on the upgrade request list, but the actual upgrade is never guaranteed. (And see below about how status level affects this.)

Second, no airline even puts you on the upgrade list if you don't have elite status. So what you need is elite status.

Third, as mia already explained, no card gets you status on an airline. However, some cards get you closer to status. (But you still have to fly paid trips on the airline to make up the difference.)

Fourth, all of this card activity only gets you (part way) to the first level of status. But on most ailrines, someone with only the lowest level of status gets fairly few upgrades (but it depends a lot on the routes you fly, the days/times you fly, etc, etc). But no card gets you to higher levels of status. You generally need higher levels of status to get a sizeable number of upgrades to actually go through.