Originally Posted by Kensterfly

I've held Silver for about ten years. One year I didn't make it but flew so much in the Spring that I qualified by late May. That covered the rest of that year and all of the next.
A couple of years I was 4-5k miles short of Gold. I was tempted to buy up to Gold but opted not to. This year will be very tight. I'm flying as many segments as I always have but many of them are shorties like IAH-MEM or BNA to IAH. Quite a few MCO-IAH, too.
I always meet the PQD$$ because all business and household expenses (utilities, phones, TV... pretty much everything) goes on my UA Mastercard.
If I come up short in miles I'll have to determine if it's worth it to buy into Silver or do a mileage run. I have Global Entry so get Pre-Check 100%. My card gets me a free bag and 'priority' boarding. I'll miss E+ but those MEM and BNA runs are always RJs so it doesn't matter much.
As far as upgrades, I have been very fortunate to get a LOT of unexpected upgrades. Several from MCO to IAH last Spring. Once, I was #5 with no seats showing right before boarding. I got paged to the gate counter and got the upgrade. The agent said a party of five cancelled at the last minute. I recently got an IAH to MSY. And just last week got the upgrade both ways IAH to Cancun!

A Couple of weeks ago I was sitting #1 ATL-IAH virtually all day with one empty seat. An hour before departure I got bumped to #2 by a guy who was standing by for that flight. It doesn't seem right to get bumped by a standby.

I even got upgraded twice on IAH-SEA and once on a red eye SEA-IAH.
Oh, yeah.... AUS-LAX once. The long hauls are really nice but I've never been upgraded on anything bigger than a 757.

I don't know if they give any priority to long time Silvers vs a newbie, but overall, I've had very good luck with the upgrades. And I have NEVER not been able to get either an E+ exit row aisle or 7C/7D (bulkhead E+ seat.

It's all good.