I am Platinum on Delta and will likely make Diamond this year. But come January 1st 2011, I'm done - DONE - with Delta. The inability to use my hundreds of thousands of Zimbabwe dollars (er... I mean skymiles) at any reasonable rate on some trips for Mrs. Sarge62 has gotten on my last nerve and I'm out.

I do most of my travel to Chicago and San Francisco from NYC. So I have several questions as I look to switch to either United or American.

1) Status Match - Will United match my Platnium or Diamond status to 1K, or just PE?
2) If they will only match to PE, in order to qualify for 1K for the remainder of 2011, would I have to (a) fly the full 100,000 miles, or would I (b) have some kind of imputed base of 50,000 miles due to the match and only be required to fly 50,000?
3) Upgrades to Chicago and SF. What is the general success rate for upgrades on these flights for PE and 1K? I usually fly out Monday afternoon and back at the crack of dawn on Friday's. I've had a decent upgrade percentage on Delta (the only thing thats kept me from switching to date), and was wondering how the mid and high tiers at UAL fared.

Any help would be appreciated.