A little background about my current situation: holding Cathay Silver (about to reach Gold) and United Silver. Most frequent routes:

• YVR-HKG - 3-4x round trip a year, mostly Premium Economy and occasionally Business
• YVR-SFO - ~3x round trip a year, mostly Economy
• Some other random flights within North America from YVR. Probably 2-3x a year

Used to be HKG based and so Cathay was kind of a no-brainer, but recently moved to Canada so most of my flights will be to/from YVR - realized that OW's presence is pretty weak on the routes that I fly (and North America in general), so am trying to figure out the best strategy on earning points/status efficiently (also wanted to take into account status match/challenge opportunities here).

Was thinking of requesting a status challenge from AC (saw that I'll have to approximately fly 18.5k miles in 90 days) and trying to stick with it. Wondering if there are any wiser options given my situation?

Thanks!