You're quite welcome, gogoflyer!

1. It's OK to belong to a lot of FF programs. You never know when you will need to fly on an airline that you don't usually use. So it is prudent to get whatever miles you can get.
2. What I meant was, **given a choice**, don't spread your flying out amongst all of them. If you can, concentrate on one or two and get all the miles you can in those accounts.

Elite status is such a basic question, that it tends to be taken for granted by frequent flyers and what it is isn't given much discussion. So, if all will bear with me, here's the skinny in a nutshell:

When you fly a certain number of miles with an airline, you will be given more status than the average flyer. For instance, if you fly 25,000 base miles* (see below) Northwest will grant you WorldPerks Silver status. You will get to board ahead of non-elites, therefore not usually having a problem finding overhead space for your carryon luggage. You will be able to get settled down instead of standing in line in the aisle. And, in line with your desire to get the most miles the fastest, you will get a 50% bonus on your frequent flyer miles. In other words, if you fly 1000 base miles, you will be awarded 1500 ff miles. See?

If you fly 50,000 miles, you get gold status, and get double miles(2000 total ff miles if you fly 1000). 75,000 (oh, my aching backside!) and you get 125% (1250 extra miles for a total of 2250 ff miles) more miles.

There's more to elite, but these are some of the bigger advantages.

* Base Miles: Sometimes called elite qualifying miles...the miles that count towards earning elite status. Take the example above, you flew 1000 miles, and earned 1500 miles. Only the 1000 count towards elite status, whether getting higher elite, or maintaining your present status next year. The extra 500 miles DO NOT count towards that. They do, of course, count towards ticket redemption, as do other non-flying miles. This does cause confusion at times. Just remember, Base miles for earning elite status, all miles for free flying.

Warning, this is very general and how Northwest does it isn't how all airline do it. For instance, Delta would not give you 1000 base miles for the above trip if you purchased one of their cheaper tickets. You would get the full 1000 ff miles plus any elite bonus ff miles, but only half of the 1000 base miles would count towards elite status; Delta does not call them base miles, but Medallion Qualifer Miles, or MQM if you were wondering what that meant on the Delta forum...yes, it can get complicated sometimes, so I picked an easier example with an airline I am very familiar with. Read the Delta forum for how ff'ers feel about this "feature" of the SkyMiles program.

Hope this helps. It by no means covers all the minute details, specials and exceptions, but by now, you're probably getting a handle on things. The search function here works pretty well--wear the sucker out whenever you get a chance!


[This message has been edited by hnechets (edited 07-20-2003).]