Majority of my flights are from India to Europe, North America and now Brazil. I am a Premium Exec member with 80,000 miles with United this year. I have qualified for Star Gold 4 years in a row now, but I am planning on switching to Miles and More with Lufthansa. Reason being that I could never use my United miles to upgrade on Lufthansa since the booking class it had to be booked in was very expensive. It is important for me to have Star Gold status with the amount of waiting I do around the world, lounges would be nice. I do realize that Air Canada can make me Gold in 35000, so I was thinking about splitting it. In which case I would first achieve the Gold status and then continue earning the rest of the miles with Lufthansa. The other choice was to try and aim for the 100,000 of Lufthansa. Which option is better? Also, in United the 50k needs to be accumulated with Star Alliance partners only, is this the same case for 100,000 of Lufthansa. Can I earn on Air India who is a Lufthansa partner and that will work towards my Senator?