Originally Posted by florentian

I'm based in London so escaping the OneWorld orbit is tough, but I travel to SFO and ZRH for work a lot so I'm going to try :-) I've got two C/D/P LHR-SFO trips with UA in the next few months worth a total of 12,700 PQP and 64,000 MileagePlus miles — enough to get UA Platinum under current reduced rules — but is there a better program I could use for those flights? The only times I fly UA are to SFO in business class for work, flying mainly Swiss or BA within Europe the rest of the time, so the miles I accrue with UA MileagePlus are not very useful.

Clearly it's a lot harder to get *A status with Swiss than with United though, my current booked flights don't get anywhere close to Senator (about 38,000 vs the 100,000 needed). Any others to consider? Thank you!

(1) What is your home airport? LON (LHR, LCY, LGW)
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.) Business C, D, P, or Z for work. Economy for personal (K, V, L, etc.)
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k) 25k-50k — 4-6 long haul legs per year, ~20-30 short haul legs
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Silver, M&M Senator etc) BA Silver. I had UA Gold pre-pandemic
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Lounge benefits for personal travel; redeeming miles without paying exorbitant fees
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc) LON-SFO 2-3 times a year, LON-ZRH 4-6 times per year, plus other travel within Europe
(7) Preferred Airlines UA but usually only for LHR-SFO. Swiss otherwise (and, unfortunately, BA)
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you choose your airlines, class of service? Both; yes