Thanks for the compliments, dgolds. To begin my comments, I should state that I am a CO Plat, NW Gold, US Gold, and Starwood Gold Preferred member. I can tell you that with my age and race acting in synergy (18 y.o. black male), I tend to be "singled out" for attention by ground agents and FAs.

In all honesty, sometimes it is positive attention, like extra-attentive service from a FC FA who is probably just happy to see someone closer to his/her own age in there.

Most of the time, however, the "attention" is negative. I am repeatedly asked by agents if I am First Class/Elite, in many instances having to physically show the Elite card to the agent controlling the queue or handling the actual check-in.

In Beijing, for instance, the NW supervisor (who, BTW, was a 30-something American male) was casually greeting other pax in the WBC check-in line. While the other pax basically got a "Hello. How are you?", the first thing I was told was "Are you a non-rev?" I simply said, "Platinum Elite," flashed the card, and he went about his business.

IMHO, the worst offenders are CO, UA, and NW, in that order. I have never had any "issues" when traveling on US or any of the other majors, for that matter.

When it comes to hotels, I have never experienced any major problems with Starwood. When I stayed at the Great Wall Sheraton in Beijing last month, the agent had to call Preferred Guest to confirm that I was a Gold Preferred, but that was understandable because I had been recently comped, and did not have the actual Gold card in my possession. I haven't had enough experience with Marriott, Hilton, et. al. to make any judgment calls.