As the year winds down and a review my miles and points accumulated for 1999, I am struggling with what I want to do in 2000.

I would very much like to be a 1k on United, but at present, I maintain MVP Gold on Alaska and Silver Elite on NWA in addition to being PremEx on UAL. That's a minimum of 125,000 flight miles, I fly about 150,000.

My initial idea was to drop NWA, get UAL 1K and keep AS MVP Gold. But here's the rub, if AS adds an MVP Platinum level, I will either have to make that or lose my top of the heap status with AS. In order to do both UAL 1k and Paltinum AS, I'd need to fly 200,000 miles or 200 segment, and that is more than I want to think about.

Decisions, decisions.

Also, dropping NWA status means they would start capping my credit card at $50,000.00 per annum. Maybe not a big deal if I can get another United affiliate card before 2001. Right now I max out my single UAL card way too often.

I have also decided to switch to Hilton as my primary hotel, with Marriott as a back up just because I have a much easier time getting a room when and where I want it with Hilton and always get upgraded, even though I was black with Marriott and Gold ('til 2099) with Hilton.

I'd be very interested in hearing your dilemas and plans for miles and points in the coming year.