It is my first time to ask questions on flyertalk forum. Sorry for the hassle and thank you for your advices!
I am a new graduate student in Chicago and my home is in Shanghai, China. I enjoy MR and I have managed to become *A Gold on UA with less than $1,400 by DEQM promotion this Spring. The generous checked baggage allowance on UA (70 lbs*3) helped me a lot.
My motivation for status is primarily due to (with ranked order) bonus RDM, luggage allowance and priority check-in/waitlist/etc.. I am not a fan of business/first class, but I would like to fly in these classes if they are cheaper than economy class in terms of EQM/RDM after bonus. I am a graduate student in the quarter system, so I am busy during
weekdays of academic years (late Sep-early Dec, early Jan-late Mar, early Apr-early Jun), but I have time during most of weekends and summer/winter/spring breaks.
During my graduate study, possibly postdoc afterwards in the US (5-10 years), I hope to become a lifetime *A Gold by flying. If possible, I would also like to be an Oneworld Platnium primarily by bonus miles (AA). I have done some research on the flyertalk forum, primarily based on the following two threads:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...d-summary.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...ounge-etc.html
In *A, BM requires 10 years gold member while SA requires 6 years. I do not think I would fly SA since they require 50K miles on their flights to be a gold member. BM has an awesome program, but I am not sure I would fly frequently for 10 years and they might not even exist after 10 years... (Is the rumor that BM would merge with LH true?) Other than these two, OZ seems to have a reasonable requirement to accrue 1M miles on
any *A flights. UA requires 1M accurate miles
on their flights, which is sort of hard to achieve in 5-10 years for me. Any suggestions?
In Oneworld, the unpublished program on AA is great. I have managed to get some bonus miles by applying credit cards, but I do not think I could get 2M miles in 5-10 years just by applying credit cards. Are there any other advices for accruing non-flight miles on AA? Besides, is it worth for me to also have regular status on AA?
Thanks again!