This is my situation and you are spot on - the CK benefits to me, while nice, are not as strong to me as they are for fliers in your flying situation. When I do fly domestic, it is always a direct flight (benefit of CLT being home airport), so missing connections is not an issue. When flying international, I am always booked in J by my company, so FL access and upgrades are not needed. Maybe I've been lucky, but in my 21 trips to/from NRT in the past 3 years, I have never been in a situation where I needed a ride to make my connection at either DFW or ORD.