Two Years Gold, then Back to Silver
The decision will be easy for me. I need to go from Berlin to the States four times/year. I have an Asian or Australian trip every other year, and a Latin American trip every third or fourth year. I also go to London 2-3 times, and I have other travel--I am in Brussels 3-4 times, Warsaw at least twice, etc., where BA is not an option. Across the Atlantic I am usually World Traveller Plus, while economy intra-European and intra-US.
Last year, I was BA silver and Delta Gold. This year, I concentrated on BA and am now BA gold. I miss Lufthansa status although I usually lose several thousand each year and have to fly some on them anyway. With the jump from silver to gold so steep as of 2013, I will probably go back to BA silver plus work for status on one of the other two networks. While Lufthansa would be more obvious, it only takes one inter-continental on AF to Los Angeles in their "economy plus" plus a few domestic flights on Delta to go up each level in their system.
I should add my employer doesn't care whom I fly with; the only restriction is that the purchased ticket does not say "business" on it (although the upgrade is no problem). The question is, which European hub do I want to use for the US travel? For the first 600 Avios points, it will be BA.
I should probably do some research on other Flyertalk boards once the two-year exemption on the new points requirements is done on which other network I should add. Any suggestions?