Welcome to FT, raceroyce!

I'm not sure just what you're asking. When you fly, the miles you accrue count towards both award mileage and status. It doesn't matter where you purchase your tickets from (with the exception of opaque booking sites like Priceline's name-your-own-price), so you can still use those cheap fares to gain status. The one thing you have to be aware of, though, is that in most programs, status miles generally get reset on 01 January (though some programs have 2-year qualifying periods). Most airlines also have ways to achieve lifetime status using miles accrued over the years.