th14

This is some of the best advice in this entire thread. Before you start traveling, you absolutely want your corporate travel person (internal or external) contact the United and AA reps and let them know what you're planning for travel. At minimum, they will offer a status match for the 50k tier and possibly the 75k tier which you'll be able to hit in 2 trips. That will give you decent status within 2-3 months. If you're working with a big travel agency that has a strong relationship, you can let them know ahead of time that you're interested in GS and at least get that on the radar.

My 2 cents on this discussion. I was 1k for over 10 years and pretty much can't stand United now. Have switched to Delta and international carriers. That said, for your circumstance, I'd vote for United. My wife was GS for many years and its pretty spectacular.

If you're not looking to go back to Asia with your miles, then less point to accumulate CX miles. Even if you can redeem on OW, it's not as easy. So your choices are UA, AA, AS

Are you looking to do economy or premium redemptions on your personal travel? If economy, you have more options. You can get AA or UA economy redemptions easier.

Premium cabin space is very hard everywhere. I would agree with someone's suggestion that you split mileage which will expand your redemption options. That said, I go back to the GS discussion. If you can get GS, then that's your best tickets to premium travel.

Is schedule more important to you on personal travel and is UA biz good enough? Then get to GS and go with UA. There's just so many more options from SFO to get you where you may want to go. AA first and biz cabins are probably better to Europe but you're connecting and then your partnering with BA. Transit through LHR is a disaster and the fuel charges and taxes on BA are crazy bad.

AS gets you access a lot of different carriers and improves your chances of premium redemptions so I can't argue against that.

Fun problem to have for sure.