A year or so ago, I played that game. If you got advance upgrades you would do it (change) after getting seats. If's tougher if you only get battlefield though. Even if you get it a little early like at a Club, they will not allow a switch of program unless you already qualify for the upgrade on the switched to program. (Got that?)

It's interesting because I was doing the same thing. NW dropped my home airport and I was switching to CO but didn't want to lose my upgrades. When I asked CO for a comp status they said no but told me to go ahead and switch my number after upgrade (which you can do online).

However when I mentioned that in a PC you would have thought I had commited mortal sin or fraud (a term actually used by a PC agent).

Don't know if they have caught on or want to make it a problem but it certainly was part of the game back then.

I even remember once when I had traveled from SFO to EWR I didn't get upgraded to FC so I left my NW PE number in for a chance to get an UG for the return trip. It was a turnaround so when I got off the plane I went to the gate agent and asked if I had be UGed for the return yet. She handed me a FC BP. I then went to one of the convience CO help desks and they gladly changed the whole trip to my CO number.

Thats when ATA was on the same route and you could get a SFO-EWR-SFO for less than $150 most every weekend.

BT