I'm going to fly a lot more in 2002 and should make silver status by midyear..I've been reading a lot in flyertalk and learning.... I had to post to this thread..since I'm going to do it via NW.
NW is a strange mix. 10 years or so ago on a flight to LAX we were stranded for over 4.5 hours on the tamrac in Ontario CA after being diverted. Total idiots..
There's the time my wife, who was 6 months preggers at the time, was refused admitance to a WC with my card. It is a lifetime membership that she had actually paid for since she's our company's Treasurer. Technically they were correct, since I wasn't there.. but..
Then there's my most recent run in in August, when, after upgrading to first class using miles, when I cancelled the flight WP basically said "tough". I called and got nowhere, when I asked to speak to a Supervisor, I was told "you have no case ..I see no reason to have you speak to a Supervisor." They kept the 20,000 miles. The lack of people skills is incredible.I hope and pray the guy was laid off.. he was typical of some of the incredible jerks I've run into at NW..

However..
I've also been upgraded several times with little or no prompting. For the most part, my problems have usually occured with people who are staff, not actually on the planes. Let's hope I've made the right decision.