Hello! Thanks to everyone for a really informative thread - I spent this morning reading the whole thing twice lol

My girlfriend and I have an upcoming trip to Spain. This is our first time traveling internationally together and in an effort to make things as smooth as possible I have booked us in D1 (thanks to another thread here that helped me find some really low fares) and am considering VIP Select at either our outbound connection - domestic to international at ATL, or inbound international to domestic at DTW. All legs are on DL metal.

Having to pick just one, which would make more sense? Neither connection is tight (we have 3 hours in ATL, and 5 (gross) in DTW). I am leaning towards the returning connection at DTW because we have to go through customs and re-check our bags and that will be in the middle of a very long travel day. On the outbound trip I am expecting our bags to be checked through our final stop and we won't have to deal with them at ATL at all, but ATL is a larger airport.

Any comments or opinions would be appreciated.