My wife and I both are both retired, actually me a year ago, her in a month. We generally easily maintain *A Silver on UA. I have been 1P *G occasionally. We have a comfortable number of MP RDMs.

1) Home Airport - SAN/CLD, international gateways LAX and SFO.
2) Fares bought - discount economy.
3) Annual miles - 40-60K for me, 25-30K for my wife.
4) Status - We are UA 2P *S. I could make 1P *G if I credit an OZ trip to UA.
5) Most important benefit - Priority services and lounge access.
6) Routes - SAN-SFO/DEN/NYC and US west coast to Southeast Asia, most often BKK.
7) Airlines - UACO domestic, any *A to SEAsia (TG, SQ, OZ, NH).
8) 100% out of pocket pleasure travel.

We like upgrading lowball economy UA fares to SEAsia with miles and copays. We will not fly UA to SEAsia in regular E or E+. We have flown Thai premium economy and it's okay. We have redeemed MP miles for C awards which are fine of course, but we like status and want to earn miles when we fly. It looks like MP will be downgrading miles earned ratios on the lowball fares we like.

I have a flight this fall on OZ (W), LAX-REP and BKK-LAX ~ 16400 miles, and 4 TG flights intra-region (H) ~2000 miles.

And we both have a trip booked Spring 2012, SAN-SFO-HKG on UA (W) ~7000 miles, upgraded NC with miles, and HKG-IST-LAX on TK, Comfort Class (A) ~12000 miles.

Unless I am missing something, it looks to me like if I credit my two trips to OZ Asiana Club I will have ~33K toward *G (40K) with them. I'm a little unclear as to the status term, but it looks like 24 months from "Reference Day," whatever that is?

And if my wife credits her trip to A3, she could have ~15.5K toward *G with them (20K). I'm again unclear as to the status term, but it looks like it is not so much calendar based as it is from date of first qualifying flight, or ?

Add in our regular domestic trips on UA to NYC, DEN and SFO and we could both be *G.

I am asking if this looks like a reasonable course of action, me crediting to OZ, my wife to A3. OZ works for our SEAsia destinations. My wife travels domestically by herself, so "needs" her own status. It looks good to me, but I have been known to miss obvious downsides and would appreciate any advice. Thanks!