Long time lurker, first time poster! HELLO TO ALL!
deciding to jump into the miles and credit card game since I've seen that with time+money+work+travel hacking I can end my misery in ECON class.
Half of the year I live in the US (US citizen) and other half I live in London,uk with frequent trips for pleasure to see family or a new city/country. Mainly Poland (KRK,WAW,LCJ) Italy, and soon to add Spain to the mix (madrid,barcelona,malaga)

(1) What is your home airport? LAX/ LONDON
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Y or X (economy or discount economy) open to buy IntraEurope BIZ occasionally( to get miles/staus/pts)
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? 50-75K
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Silver, M&M Senator etc) not yet; deciding
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? (Frequent upgrades on travel, priority services when flying the airline, good award redemption rates, free lounge access, etc.)
Good award redemption rates, frequent upgrades on travel, free lounge access
(6) Which routes do you fly most often: TRANSALTANTIC 2x-4x/yr and UK.EU.UK
(7) Preferred Airlines: sick of low cost ryaniar/easyjet im ok with Norwegian. but i want to accumulate with any Star Alliance.
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? a mix of both.

ive seen Aegean is easiest for Gold status which is something I would ideally strive for to use for transatlantic flights mainly. Lufthansa's M/M reedem/surcharges are too hefty.

However, since im also based in the USA, I was thinking United and/or Avianca combined with the CSR/ink/CFU cards and shopping portal/purchasing LifeMiles would be a good option as well. I am stuck deciding what would be best. Ultimately, my goal is to redeem for a nice LH/LX biz or first class seat once or twice a year whether outright or via upgrade(s) Just to be clear, I would aim to spend around 1200-2000 USD per month on the chase credit cards and then transfer to United if I decided to join them.

Thanks!