I'm Gold, Jerry, Gold!

I received the following notice today:

Congratulations! You’ve reached WorldPerks Gold Elite status – your benefits include:

• 100% mileage bonus on credited flight miles
• SkyTeam^&reg Elite status when you fly on the SkyTeam Global Alliance
• Unlimited Domestic upgrades
• Elite pre-boarding and access to dedicated Elite boarding lanes at the gate
• Waived initiation fee for WorldClubs^&reg membership
• Elite Services Reservations Line
• Increased access to award seats via nwa.com^&reg and more!

I hit it the hard way with 60 segments (and 46,000 miles). You get one segment for every time you fly on a plane somewhere, regardless of the distance. Most of my travel this year was in the mid-west and east-coast in 500 mile chunks for the most part. 100 segments gets you Platinum status, and almost guaranteed first class upgrades, but I've never gotten there. As my friend Mack says, "Airline and Hotel statuses are no badge of honor." Flying out of Lansing, Bill is usually always Platinum because of the extra flight through Detroit. When NWA's service tanked this year he started driving to Detroit, and for the first time in a long time, he's 12 segments short and trying to make it up with 1.5 months left.

The airline statuses may seem trivial, but they make all the difference in the world for people who travel frequently, even on a crummy airline like Northworst. Even at Gold status, I get bumped to first class roughly 75% of the time - but there are other big benefits like being able to board first (you get your carry-on luggage on the plane), being able to pick seats in the front of the plane (gets you off earlier and a little more leg-room) and picking exit rows early, plus getting double miles for every mile I fly. Gold keeps me humble. The Platinums expect first class every time (and get it about 95% of the time), and it gives me great joy to see them not get it when I do. My personal favorite was when traveling with my friend Bill and he had ASSumed that he would get it, so he never checked which seat he'd picked. He ended up squashed in between two very large men. He seemed to enjoy it.