My apologies if this is the wrong forum for this.

I'm a WAS flyer, probably do 75K a year and have been flying with US out of habit for 10 years. Since the program has been devalued lately, I'm looking at other carriers, but I am not familiar with anyone other than UA. My goal is simple - I want to fly whatever airline gives me the best chance at getting a comfortable seat, and the smallest chance at a regular economy seat.

US does unlimited upgrades, but they have few first class seats on mainline jets, they route you through PHL, and fly many regional jet flights with no first class. UA has Economy plus which is fine, but I seem to be booted out of there at random with some regularity. The 500 mile upgrade certs seems to me to grant you no more than 20% of your flying miles in first class.

What about the others? Continental, Northwest, American, Delta? Can someone just give me a two sentence description of the program, e.g. how you access first class (coupons or unlimited upgrades), whetehr they fly a lot of regional jet routes out of WAS, and whether people have decent success getting upgraded. yur comments are greatly appreciated.