I'm NW-now-Delta Silver and Mrs Huge is CO silver. I'll keep my status for next year but Mrs Huge won't. Clearly our best move will be for her to get status matched to Delta silver for 2010 ... will Delta care that she hasn't flown all that much in 2009? We will be booking a flight on Delta for December - will it help her to get status match if we submit the match request after we book the flight, so she can say "look - I really am going to be flying on Delta from now on?" or does that just look like she's trying to get matched so she can get upgraded on one flight?

And should she set up her new Delta Skymiles account before requesting the match? And if so, is there any way to get some bonus miles just for setting up a new account?