Regarding "discretionary" or unpublished Plat benefits on NW...

I'm only a sliver but what RC's talking about is a general willingness at the airline to maybe do something extra, or bend the rules here and there for Plats where they might not fo it for Golds and Silvers.

I have had one personal experience with standard award availability becoming available by virtue of my being elite. What happened was, I was trying to redeem WBC to Asia and there was (of course) poor availability. So I said something like "I understand that you folks are willing to occasionally call the inventory management desk and get extra standard space opened up for award travel." The agent said she'd be happy to, but that they don't always help out. When she came back, they had cleared space on a more direct DTW-NRT-BKK for me.

I think this is the kind of thing RC referred to.