I'm going to guess that most of us get upper echelon status via work travel. I augment my work travel with mileage runs at the end of the year if I'm within a reasonable outlay of cash for the miles I need to hit the status level I want to hit. I used to do at most one a year to somewhere simple. I still can't believe I let FT members convince me to visit Saigon and Bahrain, so what can I say?
