All *A airlines in Europe are increasingly tightening requirements and removing mileage credit from their cheaper flights--they've been able to collude with each other to make this nearly seamless. I found myself just short of UA PE, and it was very frustrating to see all the flights I could take that would yield no credit.

I joined this forum and am learning alot.

I went to FareCompare.com--recommended in another thread:

http://www.farecompare.com/search/flyertalk.html

and it is a quite useful tool for transatlantic or North American travel. But it returns absolutely nothing for travel within Europe.

Happily, UA gave me the status, even tho 600 miles short. But would like to explore all the options, and get smart, since I will likely find myself in this situation again.

Are there tools, rules, or smart folks out there that can help me boil down the best ways to make MRs in Europe on *A?