Originally Posted by
MikeBOS
I wouldn't get your hopes up unless you are Gold. In my experience Silver is not worth much; the main benefits are the ability to select exit row seats without paying a fee (normally up to $30), and an extra 6 hours ahead to buy F upgrades (at 12 hours instead of 6). Be careful with the "free" MCS upgrades, because if you already have an exit row seat window or aisle, you have a decent chance of ending up with a worse seat (middle) after the upgrade.
The status programs on most of the legacy airlines give you a better shot at upgrades than VX does, if you're not at the lowest level.
How full the plane is probably depends on your route. A lot of the flights I take are full.
The rest of it is true, but, assuming that you don't fly F or MCS, another nice benefit of Silver is the earlier boarding. If you travel with a carry-on and don't want to gate-check it, this is a nice bonus (I never check bags and I hate having to wait for them after the flight -- I want to walk out of the airport as soon as I'm off the plane). I fly SFO-LAS a lot and those flights are usually full (or close to it) and people in the last couple of boarding groups are constantly having to gate-check their bags.
They often offer earlier boarding to get volunteers to gate-check before boarding starts. I always thought that this was completely useless, since, once you don't have any carry-ons, earlier boarding isn't really worth anything. They should offer a free drink or something. I'm sure that a lot of people would check their bags in exchange for a beer.