Upgrades rock

Delta approved our upgrades for the Tokyo-Atlanta leg of our January return from China. We don't know why it took so long (business class was only about 10% full). We're using Billy's Platinum upgrade certificates just like we did on the way over here. They have to be used by February. It's nice to squeeze every last mile out of them for the super-long flight.

For the trip to Brazil, we're using miles to purchase the upgrade. Once you get a big chunk of miles in the bank, it gets easier and easier to get upgrades. On a domestic flight, Billy'll get upgraded automatically for free. If there's room, I can go with him. Internationally, we'll use his platinum certs if we have them, or cough up the miles to upgrade ourselves. The sneaky bit is, when you get to medallion level (silver, gold, platinum) you actually earn bonus points for every flight. And when you upgrade, you get the bonus points for flying in a higher class. I've made silver this year (it's recalculated annually). I'll have to check with Billy to see if he made platinum again or is being downgraded to gold.

Unfortunately, Billy earned platinum level on Delta before we realized that SkyTeam is not really the alliance we want to be part of. We're stuck with it now. When we have to fly on something outside the alliance we'll just make sure we get a really good price. Sure, we'll earn some miles in other alliances, and on independent airlines, it'll never be enough to get any of the good rewards. And once you've flown across the pacific a few times, anything less than 10 hours starts sounding like a 'short flight'. I've flown round trips to Australia, Brazil, and Ireland in coach... but I do like to avoid 'roughing it with the commoners' when I can!