One small pause for thought: if you have more flights planned later this year, and Challenge
on or after June 16 (2005), you get Platinum through next year and Feb 28 2007, rather than merely Feb 28 2006 as you will when you Challenge in April.
To retain status past Feb 28 2006, you will have to fly 50,000 miles / earn 50,000 points / fly 60 segments this calendar year - though OTOH,
with THREE of those flights, depending on where you are flying from and the fare class you are flying to Rome, you may earn enough points (or get close to it if you add a domestic flight or two) this year to carry status over into 2007 anyway.
One of the several benefits of Plat will be status over Golds if you choose to upgrade to F with miles...
or upgrade from Coach to Business to Rome. (As to your question about signing up for both Challenges concurrently, 1) sign up for the Platinum Challenge
first, so if you get the occasional miles guardian on the phone, they won't deny you because you are already signed up for Gold, 2) some of us would just to get the 25% bonus on the flight to Paris.
It sounds to me you are occasionally confusing points and miles, BTW. You get 1000
bonus (non-elite qualifying) miles for booking on line, not
any points. In Business Class, you do earn 1.5 points per EQM (Elite-Qualifying Miles) and you will earn a 25% class-of-service bonus (non EQ) and when you become Platinum, even on the qualifying flight, 100% Platinum bonus (non-EQ) miles. The Challenge, as you have implied, is all about EQP (points) and not miles, earned within a ninety day period of beginning your Challenge.
Yeah, this is verbose - but IMO it helps to strategize once one has a goal, so one can maximise it. Good luck!
