As a DL gold member, do I still have to pay for baggage fee when my first flight is with Alaska or other code shared partner?

Unfortunately there is no luggage exemption for DL Medallions (any level) on AS.

They only exception, and there it does not matter if you are Medallion or not is connecting to an intl. flight. Mind you only on the outbound. I have paid AS fees when AMS-SEA (on DL) got rerouted to AMS-VYR-SEA (KL/AS). Upon re-ceckin in VYR the nice lady behind the counter was not one bit moved by my insistence that this was not my fault. "You can fly, but if you do not pay, your bags stay here."

From AS' website:
Customers making international connections to other airlines within twelve hours of arriving in your connection city, may follow the baggage allowance and weight restrictions of the international airline - provided a ticketing and baggage agreement is in place between Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air and your other carrier. Please contact Alaska Airlines Reservations at 1-800-252-7522 (TTY/TDD Users: 1-800-682-2221) or Horizon Air Reservations at 1-800-547-9308 for more information.

Does that apply if you are upgraded? I know the odds are normally low, but I have an ANC to Nome flight next month not sure how busy that can be.

If you get upgraded to first on AS, you get 2 free checked bags. The upgrade won't happen automatically, make sure you get your AS PNR (call AS and give them last name/flt#/origination city), and make sure your DL status got synced over to the AS website.

Then hit the AS website at T-24 exactly, and look for the the little upgrade link.

Without status on AS, can you request upgrade?

You can't request an upgrade until OLCI at 24 hrs before departure. You can always try at the machine at the airport as well (That worked for me on Wednesday going from SEA-LAX). Either way, the "system" will not automatically put you on any waitlist. A person will have to manually do that for you if the ug wasn't avail at c/i.

Even worse - flying on AS metal on a DL ticket with a DL Flight number, still had to pay a baggage fee. Was told that I could get it reimbursed from DL, but no reply to my complaint so far.

Markga - I frequently am flying DL ticket on AS metal, and am a Delta DM.
Just call the DL Medallion line; they have always given me a voucher for the amount of checking a bag.

Haven't tried it when flying on a AS ticket - wouldn't seem fair to ask DL in that scenario.

Well if frequently flying AS, why not get at least MVP status on them...

Eventually this should be worked out as far as baggage reciprocity, but I think IT has some other bugs they are working on... such as that link appearing for OLCI before other elites have been upgraded that are higher in the queue.

You make a point and if I flew "just a little bit more", I probably would. Last yr flew 141,000 miles. Keeps me in Diamond status, but the 15,000 mi does nothing towards status on AS. So, I need one more 10,000 mi trip - NOT !

Derailing off topic a bit- but impressed that you're only able to fly 15K on AS if based out of Alaska... Now if you were using the math that you need to credit 125K to DL to maintain DM, and only have a 16K buffer, one only needs 20K flown on AS metal to achieve MVP status... now back to the regularly scheduled broadcast