<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ATC:
Beckles, that was my Plan A also. However, upgrades for Golds and Silvers have essentially been eliminated. The NAU 10,000 upgrade counter is linked to Preferred miles. I missed this initially. So after our CP runs out, so will the upgrade opportunities.
</font>
Partially ... you can roll-over some upgrades, but I think only 10 per year ... then others have mentioned that you can just call US when you drop from CP to Gold and they'll send you some free ones ... finally, you will just have to buy some of course ... but it still may be better than the other available alternatives ...
The real advantage though is buying time to evaluate what the landscape is going to look like in six months ... deciding what to do now probably isn't the best idea because all the programs are or will be undergoing some changes, in particular the partnerships that have been announced but not finalized. If I switch, my best option will likely be DL/CO/NW ... but even then, I'm not sure which program among them to go with, but it would probably be NW based on what the programs look like *right now* ... but I don't think they'll look the same soon enough.