I can't see why you wouldn't just be better with bmi.

Firstly, if you are going to Chicago, you might consider connecting in Manchester. The daily departure time out of LHR isn't too bad. It will only take two bmi trips to ORD in business plus a bit of additional European travel in economy to get *G and you'll get the bmi and lounge benefits on a higher percentage of your flights in economy than if you only make gold with Virgin.

When you have no alternative than to use Virgin (and I would need there to be no alternative before I'd use Virgin) then you can collect bmi mileage points anyway, just not status miles. Then at least all your miles are in one account, which makes for quicker and better redemptions.

Plus, whilst on your long-haul trips, any internal connecting flights with bmi are likely to be in first at no extra cost and earn three times as many *A points. So ORD to SFO would be a route worth considering.

If you travel on leisure with bmi chances are you can use up your existing miles on your UA card more efficiently too.

Finally, you might think you don't like bmi's service but have you tried it? MAN to LAS and ORD are excellent services in business and bmi has just been rated the top British longhaul airline and 5th in the world in a recent consumer survey of 20,000 travellers by the highly reputable UK consumer group Which?. Virgin Atlantic was well behind and so was British Airways. I haven't mentioned BA until now. There's a reason for that!