I'm a total newbie at MR's, all my miles come from actua BIS flying for work (40K on Alaska, 14K on UA/CO and 55K on AA this year, LT total on AA 2.6MM).... I've never flown just for the miles so totally new game for me!

So I got a status match to PE as I find UA/CO to be pretty good out of PDX. Any suggestions for a creative routing to get the 17.5K miles between now and the end of January 2012? I do need to go to the UK for a family visit - I found PDX IAH LHR IAH PDX for $840 (=6.3CPM - not great) and then I'd need another 4K miles to make PE. If I could somehow find a longed routing or something else to fill in the difference that would be great.

Also as a newbie I can't find a reliable way to convert that I see on the IAT matrix search into flights, any suggestions?


Thanks

- Tim