That's a fair and reasonable thing to say.

In general, the benefits of status are some subset of:

• Priority security
• Priority boarding
• Free checked baggage
• Space available upgrades
• Mileage earning bonuses and/or minimum mileage credit on paid flights
• Lounge access (often limited)
• Etc.

Each program has a page on its site listing the various perks of elite status.

However, many of those benefits are available with the airline's credit card anyway.

It sounds like your primary choices are Delta, United, and American. It would be a good idea to find the elite benefits page for each of their loyalty programs, then figure out your own value for the perks. You should then be able to figure out if it's worth a mileage run and/or a credit card signup.

For the things you mentioned, "upgrades" in those two programs are for domestic trips only and you would be the lowest priority. Best estimate is about 50% success rate - and if you fly at popular times or popular routes it's far lower than that. (For American, the upgrades are on a "sticker" (voucher) system, which must be earned, so you'd probably have even less success unless you paid for additional stickers.)

By "free fares", if you mean award tickets, you don't need elite status for that, although you might earn miles more quickly if you have status and there is some additional inventory of award seats only available to elite members.