Originally Posted by
timlewis808
You might want to look at some kind of status match - I think you can pay to match with Air France/KLF's scheme and then fly to Amsterdam or Paris on Easyjet and connect.
For tier point runs or the US though, Dublin is probably your best bet as usually considerably cheaper to fly CW from Dublin than Heathrow even though you connect in Heathrow..
Flyingblue is where it's at for you. Status is easy, redeeming is hard. You need 100 'XP' (tier points) to get silver, then a further 180 to get gold. You need 180 XP to renew gold, which is the status worth getting.
Something like a MAN-AMS-BUD return would get you 20 XP in economy, 60 in business, so a ~once a month economy traveler should easily get gold, including lounge access, etc.