After flying up front on my trip to Europe last March and Asia last December, as well as getting domestic elite upgrades on every single flight for the past year, I admit I'm getting too spoiled.

Last Friday, I booked a DTW-BOS-DTW trip for travel two weeks from now. What did I check first? Price. Make sure it's affordable. Then, when I had no status, I would have checked time and convenience. What did I look at next? The chances of an elite upgrade! And I actually thought of switching to more inconvenient times to ensure a better chance of upgrading. I had to reiterate to myself: you flew coach for most of your life -- and most people do -- it's okay. I ended up taking the flights with more convenient times and not factoring the chances of an elite upgrade.

I'm going to feel really bad when/if I lose my elite status in the future.

- Pat

Sometimes I wish I had never gotten to know the Ozland up front.

Now when traveling economy, I have a hard time not believing that some tragic mistake has been made. I simply do not belong back here....

After several years of high travel, I will be going back to three or four (RT) flights per year as of Jan '02; versus the three or four roundtrips per month right now.

Hence the platinum status will last through 2/28/03, and then my odds of getting a comped FC upgrade will go from 90% down to el zippo. Personally, I am squirreling away 100,000 miles for upgrades from '03 through '05. I will only use these for upgrades on the long-hauls, and will sit in steerage on the short flights.

Of course, the benefit is that my children, dog, and wife (in that order) will actually recognize me. Possibly even get to know me?

For me it is even a bigger confession!!!!
I paid extra to purchase an upgradeable tranatlantic fare. This is from the Magic111 whose critera for an airline is 1)inexpensive 2)goes where I need to go and 3) possibility of upgrade once in awhile.
Yes many moons ago I read here at ft that once you were up front that it became more difficult to go back and now I have caved in and can not believe it. After all when I first arrived at ft the upgrades for me had only been once in awhile. But once I found out that the trip I was doing SFO-MAN to attend a wedding of a friend was only $200 more each way for a discount B fare basis it was off to find a routing that had a transatlantic seat available on the day that I was traveling. Finally came up with sfo-msp-jfk-ams-man with the jfk-ams the only available seat for upgrade with miles that day. At first they were not going to allow the purchase as a legal connection but I pointed out to them that at their website http://www.nwa.com/travel/tips/making.shtml they have the connection time dom-intl @ jfk @ 40minutes. Will just have to make sure the wedding gift is a carry on.

In the late 80's and early nineties I got terribly spoiled, had Pan Am Platinum and never flew in the back of the plane. I dreaded sitting in the back...

Well., PA went bust, my life changed in other ways... although I kept flying, my loyalties were split among a bunch of different carriers and I never went above mid-elite on any one carrier at a time.

Now I'm top in three, but realize that it could all change again. Therfore I make sure that I've got enough miles in reserve at all times to last me at least through 3-5 years of my needs in order to be ready for any contingency (that's how much I hate the back of the plane!)