StarGold, Thanks for your thoughtful reply, but I am afraid I do not agree with much of what you say....and yes you would make a great pitch man for *A!!! but that aside.

We are seeing less integration of the alliance and greater fragmentation among the partners. In your own case, and that of yyzprincess seem to have the ability to fly F which gives you a distinct advantage and frankly less need to rely on many of the benefits (like u/gs) than the vast majority of others FFers. If I was in your position, I may have similar views, but I am not. I have a limited budget to achieve my business requirements and I often supplement this in order to top up to reach top elite status on my preferred carrier (not that I have much choice given my travel patterns!).

From all my flying over 25 years, I see less collaboration among the partners. True it is a marketing agreement and only some 8 or 9 yrs old, but it has failed to reach its promise IMO. And I sense more and more fractures in it esp as many are downgrading their FF programs.