EXACTLY!!!

Non-stop minimizes your miles, meaning you will likely need to buy more tickets for Mileage Runs to requalify/retain status you want.

AA's DFW base is great for MRs, I've found. Does a nice job adding more miles. Even WAS to Hawaii is longer via DFW than ORD (due to having to go around a wider "great circle" rather than being able to short-cut over the globe a bit).

I've even done what may be some of the craziest MR routings:

WAS to LGA via DFW (and the next weekend was via DFW then STL and RDU);

and especially WAS to FRA via DFW via SEA!!! It was winter MRs, and I both did not want to waste eVIPs on RJs to ORD or JFK or BOS nor get stuck in snow/weather [and those in 762s], and I noticed that SEA to FRA was through DFW and on 772, and BWI to SEA is a pretty good MR route (both through DFW, or in warmer months via JFK w/ more elite bonus miles for the short RJ), so I did BWI-DFW-SEA-DFW-FRA-DFW-SEA-DFW-BWI, twice. Crapload of miles.

DFW is a nice airport with fast airside trains going both directions around the airport.

AA also has the most generous lifetime elite status deal there is, being able to qualify using ALL miles earned any which way. Better hop on that ASAP as when they do get around to updating their software, the likelyhood of their still offering that goes way down (they had the first computerized reservation system, and having the oldest means having to do the most to update/replace it, which is why they are the last to do that--only ones who haven't done that yet might be a better way of putting it).

Steve32