Consider the following:

1. Would the Q-miles earned paying and flying on this trip get you to the next tier of your elite status, or maintain you at the current level, by the end of this year?

2. Or are you in a program which has extended your current elite status even though you haven't earned the required number of miles, or you have already this year moved to the next tier of status?

If the answer is "Yes" to the first question, then by all means buy the ticket and bank the miles. You should try and get to the next level of status, or maintain your current status. If "No" [or "Yes" to the second question], then save any purchased tickets until next year and start earning Q-miles towards elite status for 2003/4.

Depending upon which airline program you belong, the likelihood of the points vanishing in a bankruptcy is slim. Neither UA or AA are going to go out of business completely. Maybe reorganize, but neither could afford to alienate their best customers by dissolving FF accounts. And if smaller carriers go down, I believe the TWA/AA or CP/AC models will be followed whereby one of the larger carriers takes over most of the assets of the smaller ones.