Thanks for all the great replies to my first post. All good advice -- I had not thought about the number of 1Ks in the DC area vs. EXP members. It's still a tough call -- the scheduling is the big plus for UA, but that's offset by the fact that so many people are flying out of here.

On the question of inflight access to the AA Platinum or EXP lines, I read that that can be done with a star code, although I certainly wouldn't know from experience --