I didn't start traveling like crazy until 4 - 5 years ago. Sent an email to someone and thought I'd post an excerpt. Regarding UA, this is pretty much how I felt the rankings worked:

General member - pond scum
prem - just a little better than pond scum
prem exec - oh your human?
1K - welcome prince (use to be better)
UGS - hail to the king (before to 1k)

once I got to 1K, I never wanted to go back.

*Oh and slight rant*

You think they could have more than 1 or 2 checkin agents for 1K's at ORD (far end) on a freaking Monday morning. Invariably you get one guy that ties up one agent for ages and you have 10-15 1K's in queue. Easy-chicken doesn't always work ya know? And I don't always remember to print my boarding pass from home. And since I am upgrading quite a bit, I can't print out the boarding pass from home. So please please UA, could you at least put 3 agents there for Monday mornings???

*rant off*