Greetings! I fairly new to FlyerTalk, and have a couple of questions for all of you veterans that fly NW. First, let me give a little background on what I am trying to do...

Started a new job in late Oct. that has me traveling on NW as frequently as many of you. The problem is, I am usually flying fairly short hops from MSP to places like DSM, OMA, MCI, FAR, MKE, etc. I read NW's new EQS guidelines with excitement, but then realized I am at somewhat of a disadvantage because I am in a hub city and the corporate travel department puts me on non-stop flights. I am non-elite now, but would like to qualify as quickly as possible. Furthermore, while I can make GE on segments this year without any additional effort, I would really like to make PE to get as many upgrade opportunities as possible.

I was playing around with Expedia, and found some pretty creative travel routings on NW that could help make this happen. As an example, for the first weekend in Feb., I found ORD-DTW-PHL-MEM-RDU-IND-PHL-DTW-ORD for $295. Adding the flight I would need to buy to get from MSP-ORD, it would seem I could bag 10 EQS in one weekend. Of course, that assumes I could convince Mrs. Emw9000 this is a worthwhile use of my time and money, which is an entirely different challenge.

So, here are my questions:

1. Is there anything in the fine print that would prevent me from getting credit for all these segments on one ticket? I couldn't find anything on NWA.com that said 'no', but wanted to run this by the experts on this board and get your input.

2. If one of these segments is delayed or cancelled, and the gate agent is unsympathetic to my obsession with earing EQS, am I out of luck if he/she rebooks me on a more direct routing? Because of this risk, is doing a segment run worth it in the first place?

I would appreciate any comments/answers that you can provide. Thanks!