Originally Posted by
BoeingBoy
Since it appears that you'll get at least Silver on segments, you might consider signing up for the Silver trial - fly 10 segments (at most 5 round trips, less if connecting) within 90 days. That gets you Silver from the start, which could get you free upgrades and I think the 500 mile minimum per segment (someone will correct me if the latter is wrong). It used to be that you could sign up for the Silver trial but get whatever status you earned in the trial period - 20 segments = Gold, 30 = Platinum, 40 = Chairmans (with mileage equivalents for each level. I don't know whether US has closed that loophole or not.
First post on FT, hooray...
I can confirm the 500-mi minimum mileage credit per segment. I enrolled in Trial Gold in early November (thinking I could achieve Silver and fall back after the challenge; I've since been set straight). Anyway, I live in Tampa and fly to DC 2x/mo. After the 1st 45 days or so of the challenge, I started booking TPA-PHL-DCA instead of connecting in CLT. That short 1-hr jump on the E175 rounds up to 500 miles, giving me 1,427 mi one-way vs. 1,000 going through CLT.
I'll share the story in a separate post, now that I finally got resolution via the EECB, but I wound up in danger of falling short of the 20 segments needed to earn Gold at the end of the challenge. Maximizing that 500-mi minimum (even late in the game) will have me ending up with 23 segments and 15,650 mi.
I've also confirmed that you can earn HIGHER than what you sign up for in the trial, but if you don't meet that minimum requirement, you get nothing... a bit of a risk if you aren't absolutely sure. For me, it wasn't spelled out in the T&C and I was willing to pay to have Gold for the 90 days.