Delta and Northwest took a pretty big step forward in the integration of the carriers’ frequent flyer programs today, offering upgrades to elites traveling on the other carrier’s flights. The program works very similar to the current system that Northwest and Continental have, where being a Continental elite on a Northwest flight effectively give you the same status in their system as a Northwest elite of the same tier would have.
Delta has posted a few details about the new plan on their website. I can’t find anything authoritative on the NWA site yet. And the implementation seems to be a bit kludgey on the customer-facing systems, but it does seem that the systems are processing the upgrades correctly.
With Northwest elites getting upgrades on three carriers now it seems to be the best program in the USA, though it will very soon be subsumed into Delta’s SkyMiles program, which should do a pretty good job of knocking that claim down a couple rungs.
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