RustyC

I've been midlevel elite or higher since 1992 on SOME airline (usually just one at a time, and currently it's F9 50K) out of ATL, which has been Delta-dominated the whole time. It's very hard for biz travelers in Atlanta to make a go of it anywhere else but DL, but I'd say I spent more years than not OUTSIDE the Delta fold, with the most spent on CO and NW. In fact, my first-ever upgrade came in 1992 as a total surprise...I knew about miles but I didn't know about elite status.

Flying someone other than DL meant limited flights and usually connections, but for mileage maximization I could do gems like ATL-EWR-IAH-MCI (stop) and v.v. as a total bizarre zig-zag back when that sort of thing was more rewarding.

I could also feast on hub-attack fares, especially HNL ones. Once or twice a year NW or CO might hub-attack DL for a very short time with a $300-ish RT HNL fare, which also worked for miles.

Western destinations would require connections (e.g. ATL-DTW-LAS or ATL-EWR-LAS), and internationally it was about at parity to Europe or Asia.

Usually I'd switch programs if negative changes came along, which happened 5 or 6 times and sometimes involved switching into DL. Segment runs used to be a lot more rewarding on DL, and I finally had all the pieces together by 1996, when I flew 3 LAS trips on ATL-CVG-MSP-SLC-LAS (3 days)-LAX-CVG-ATL and got upgraded on all the segments (booking on easySABRE, IIRC).

I comped over to United for a year but they just didn't work out...ORD was the only true hub out of ATL, and other spots at the time were either jungle jets (IAD) or too thinly served (DEN,SFO). There was also the .bomb and bad availability on sale fares. CO also had too many jungle jets for my liking.

So it's very possible to do it if you're a self-funded leisure traveler who isn't locked into specific destinations.