Originally Posted by ironmanjt
I agree. If you fly mainly out of DCA, you can pretty much forget upgrades as a Silver unless you fly Saturday mornings.
As a platinum out of DCA, I'm 2/10 for upgrades to MSP this year, and 3/6 to DTW.
That said - DO IT. The 50% bonus miles and ability to grab select seats in advance alone are worth it!
My current thinking is to just book my RT to Korea in July on NW to qualify for silver instead of flying on Korean Air like I was planning because even though it is 2-3 stops each way instead of non-stop IAD-ICN (too bad NW isn't in SkyTeam yet!!!). Then I'll just start going United out of WAS until I get the free Int'l or RTW ticket or if UA flight schedules suck, stick to CO and start enjoying the perks of being Silver.
Do you think it would be feasible to take the KAL non-stop and just not enter a FF# and then hold on to the BP / ticket until NW is part of Skyteam and then ask for credit for the flight in WP? Or would this get negged as a flight having taken place prior to the partnership commencement?
Thanks for all of the input guys! I'm going to go for it one way or another.
peace,
~Ben~