I strongly agree that E would be best off staying with WP if most of his flights are NW. I am OP platinum but have had the same experiences with the alliance (blown upgrades, etc.) as mentioned above, although my rate of NW upgrades has been very high. E's biggest problem right now using OP, aside from the one day lag vis- a-vis WP elites would be, until they straighten out the alliance and reconcile the computer systems, the huge amount of time that sometimes must be spent on the phone to get the NW upgrade. If you get a CO phone rep who has never done this before, you are in for a long haul while you and the supervisor educate the agent and even then there still are no guarantees that the reservation will hold on the NW computers. You have to check with NW a few hours after all this to-do and since you don't have a WP elite hotline number (if such exists) wade thru a cumbersome menu until you can get a live agent to the phone.