Indeed you (
dvs7310 ) are right. But when I decided that I needed status with *Alliance I did research on the internet and made some phone calls, and I remember that I got the info that with Marriott Bonvoy Platinum, they would give me the status as long as I got a certain amount of qualifying miles with them during the first 3 months. In my situation it would be 4 sectors from Lisbon to USA (East coast). It would be impossible as I'm a leisure travel and my holidays are already taken, the only time I have available right now are weekends.