I think Alaska made a HUGE mistake with the VX merger. Growing pains aside, it's not the same airline that it was 2 years ago and I'm sure the AS lifers would even say that it's not the airline that they flew 20 years ago.

As an AS MVP with the occasional AA flight (as in maybe once or twice a year), I'm pretty bummed out by this change. While AA is not my first choice, it was nice when I flew AA to have complimentary access to MCE seats 24 hours before departure and the free checked bag.

I do believe as an MVP though, this will thin the MP elite herd and bring back my SMF-SEA upgrades that I have missed over the past year. This change will unfortunately hurt my upgrade chances on DL (as a Diamond) since I believe that many PNW flyers will shift over to DL.

This is a lose-lose situation for Alaska. They haven't really cut the partnership (with international travel) but have made it so complicated that people won't waste their time trying to figure it out.