I have been Platinum out of NYC for five years. I was commuting to Europe, and SkyTeam (especially KLM) served me well. The hardest part of being here in NYC is the 50% EQM on lower CO fares, and the number of CO Platinums on the upgrade list ahead of me. Most of my flying is on CO; I prefer to hope for the upgrade on CO rather than know it won't happen on DL metal. I am contemplating the difficult switch over to CO OP; maybe next year I'll try the gate agent NW-OP number swap...