I am not sure lifetime elite status influences my decision to fly almost exclusively with UA. I fly other carriers when UA is absolutely not an option such as not flying to a city I am traveling to. I used to be elite with CO (Bronze 1 year, Gold 1 year and Silver 2 years when these were the 3 status levels). I stopped flying CO at the end of 1993 for 2 reasons. 1) CO pulled the hub out of Denver and 2) a major attempt of a screw-job from a CO gate agent. Since 1994, I have flown almost exclusively with UA compiling the following UA flight history...

1989 - 1993: 30384 miles on 50 segments (all domestic)
1994: 51896 miles on 68 segments (all domestic)
1995: 87468 miles on 119 segments (1 international DEN-MEX via LAX).
1996: 89242 miles on 117 segments (all domestic).
1997: 82402 miles on 106 segments (all domestic).
1998: 87545 miles on 119 segments (1 international DEN-MEX via SFO and ORD).
1999: 71639 miles on 107 segments (all domestic).
2000: 97578 miles on 129 segments (all domestic).
2001: 119356 miles on 153 segments (1 international DEN-MEX via LAX and ORD).
2002: 89566 miles on 106 segments (all domestic).
2003: 32451 miles on 42 segments (all domestic).

The longest flight I ever had on UAL is SEA-IAD at 2306 miles. That was the only trans-con I ever had without stopping in between in all my years of travel. I am only 160,473 miles from MM status on UA. Will I concentrate on UA to get MM status, I guess will. After taking time to track all my UA flight activity on an Excel spreadsheet, and I mean every UA flight, I realize that MM status does mean something to me. Maybe a badge of dishonor, so to speak.


[This message has been edited by RobotDoctor (edited 06-03-2003).]