Originally Posted by
Lore
Where do you keep your elite status then? After living in Europe for the last 3 years and having Star Gold with M+, I value that program immensely. From a priority perspective, the most important thing when choosing a new program is the "fastest way to Star Gold", then ease upgrades, then free trips.
I used to keep 1P and then accrue miles to get mid-tier in either AC or LH. But it all depends on what I think will happen with my travel, which is frankly impossible to predict. I knew that I would be doing more US travel in the recent past so went to 1K and then accrued into a secondary partner. Being 1P was 'good enough' when flying LH/LX/AC/BD etc but for major US travel being 1P was no longer 'good enough' so I decided to achieve 1K.
For the upcoming year again I have no idea what will happen for my own travel patterns, but I decided to achieve 1K for 2011. I think that the AC and LH pool of elites will shrink in 2011, but that is just speculation on my part based on what I read here.