Originally Posted by
zurfer
Your summation is succinct and spot on. For years Gold status served me well, but was hoping Platinum perks would be worth the effort. The multiple upgrade paths you list above appear to have pushed elite certificate upgrades near the bottom of the food chain. Perhaps time to status match with Alaska Airlines.
Alaska has been very good to me as a Gold in their program. I've mostly flown them to the mainland for the last several years, with a few trips on other carriers. If you're willing to buy more expensive coach fares, you can clear a lot of upgrades. Otherwise it's harder, at least on the PNW routes.
I've only tried to use HA certificates a handful of times (maybe 4?), but they've cleared when I've tried. I noticed at the beginning of this year that they widened the available fare classes for the certs, which I naively thought was good. I am planning to try to use this year's two on a flight back from Portland with my son on a Wednesday in early November. It was and still is mostly empty in front, so I will be pretty miffed if they don't clear. Your experience makes me a lot more concerned than I was when I booked.