Status for me is worth pursuing as long as I can get exit row (or E+ on UA) aisle seating in advance only as long as I am a bottom-tier elite. Top-tier status was worth pursuing when I had a lot of longer-distance business trips, now it's not. My domestic upgrade percentage has dropped steadily over the last five years, and will be under 30% of segments for the first time since 1991.

(edited because the phone rang and I hit the Submit button by accident)

Still, I will do some sort of limited mileage run to make Platinum on American this year. I would have made it easily except they cut one of my routes to Eagle and I ended up flying 16 United segments instead of paying 20-40% more to sit in the RJ. So, I'll spend a good percentage of my autumn in the luxurous STL Admirals Club routing some of my Boston and Hartford business travel via Lambert to pick up an extra 700 miles a stretch. I also might spend a Saturday doing an ORD-STL-MCI/back run. But some sort of overseas run, no way.

Mileage is not worth pursuing for me. I have 800,000 miles which should be sufficient for my next three big overseas vacations (2005, 2007, 2009) even with devaluation.

Hotel status and points, however, are a different story. I get a lot of tangible benefits from my Diamond

[This message has been edited by ElmhurstNick (edited 08-25-2003).]