I feel your pain. I wish I'd known about it in 2004, when after not setting foot on a plane for almost two years, I wound up doing 28K BIS in the last 4 months of the year, but on all different carriers and alliances, so earned no status. I wish I'd known about it in 2005, when I racked up 70K, again on all different carriers and alliances, and managed to still miss even silver. And I wish I'd known about it before I did a 1000+ CFM trip mostly on cheap CO fares with only 50% EQMs in March of last year... I would've made various elite levels a lot sooner!