I am gold for the first time this year. I have been heavy on the "accumulate miles" side of the eqation so far and was hoping starting in '09 to start using miels to buy to companion tix for dergon_gf to parallel the flights I was paying for on CO to earn miles. That seems virtually impossible for me to do in the first attempt up front. I refuse to pop $150 for change tix.

I have now kind of resigned myself to continuing to accumulate and just occasionally use miles to upgrade internationally. I just have to cross my fingers that perhaps something for the better will change later on or that I'll find by dumb luck some open availabilty to fit my plans ahead of time one of these days.

I am going to just make gold for '09. For 2010 however, if things stay the way they are, I won't be putting much effort into making gold and will just hold at silver from my *normal* flying.