BrettS

My wife and I missed US Silver Elite last year by only a few segments. We're going to be flying more this year and should get enough to make gold, but we'd like status as soon as possible so we're going to try to do an elite trial. We've got an 8 segment ALB-PBI RT booked that leaves on the 17th, and I'll sign us up for the trial program soon, but I'm hoping to delay that as much as possible because we'll have some additional travel sometime in the beginning of April and it would be good to be able to do that during our 90 day trial - might even be enough to get us up to Platinum.

But obviously I want to make sure that the 8 segments we have coming up will count, and I'd also like to be able to get upgraded on some of those segments, if possible, so I don't know how much before the flights I should sign up for the program.

Does anyone know if everything takes effect immediately after I call to sign up, or does it take a few days to process?

Once I sign up, it's my understanding that we'll become silver right away and we should be able to be upgraded... will I need to call and ask for the upgrades or will they happen automatically?

Also, one of our 8 segments wound up on UA metal on a code share flight. Does anyone know if that will still count for the trial, or will we really only get 7 segments out of this trip?

Thanks much,
Brett