When I was going to change from TWA to UA or AA (I wasn't sure which), I called UA prepared with my big story like you described. The lady was unaffected and said dryly, "Just fax us a letter with your MP number and attach your most recent TWA statement and a copy of the front of your Elite 1 card and the MP department will decide what to give you". I think my letter was 3 lines long and it said that I was going to change patterns, blah blah. I guess it worked because they comped TWA Elite 1 (40k) to PremEx (50k). I called AA and they said the same thing - write a letter. So save your sob story for the letter, and just call to get the fax number .