Well, as a 1K, I get 2000 miles of upgrades for every 10000 miles flown, plus 4 confirmed N. America upgrades per quarter, and now also 6 systemwide upgrades. I fly to Asia 2-4 times a year and Europe 4-6 times a year. I fly domestically about twice a month. I also get a slight bonus of 500-mile certs because my family gives me theirs (they are always C or F when they come back to the states). Between all this, I've found that I can pretty much sustain all my domestic upgrades based on my total mileage. I either forego international upgrades or burn miles to do that, or pray for the operational. Well, I guess I'll be using the systemwides this year, until I run out. The idea to extending the life of the upgrades is of course to use the confirmed UGs for long hauls so you don't have to burn so many 500-milers on that one.

Before I made 1K, I was upgrading about 50% of the time domestically as a PE and about 20% as a Premier. Hit rate as a 1K (UG received/UG requested) has been 100%, as a PE it was probably 70%, and as a Premier about 35%.