I guess what I'm asking for here is a mini-Mileage Makeover (see http://www.webflyer.com/mimo/frmimo.htm).

This past year, I started travelling a fair bit (about 75,000 flight miles) for a new job. I fly out of IND but that is going to change in the next month or so to ORD/MDW.

I obtained UA Prem Ex status for the first time this year. I also obtained US Silver Preferred status. I generally flew UA west of the Mississippi and US east. I also have a few thousand miles on American.

I work for a national sales organization and my biz travel this upcoming year will take me to many of the major population centers once or twice each for a total of about 30-40M miles. My girlfriend lives in San Francisco, so I will travel there at least once a month for a total of about 40M miles plus. Finally, my vacation and leisure travel will net me about 10-15M miles.

I also have Hilton HHonors Diamond status.

In Chicago, UA obviously dominates the market. Right now, I plan to continue flying UA where possible to obtain the highest possible status. 1K should not be out of range if I concentrate the bulk of my mileage there; I'm not against a mileage run or two to top off my miles. In fact, I already have about 26.5M miles booked on UA for 1Q2001.

Questions:

a) Should I get American (Chicago hub) or some other carrier to comp me status so I can build mileage on them in the event that I can't justify travel on UA? Or should I wait until my travel patterns or home city change to ask for a comp? Basically, I assume that I can get comped but I don't want to get that treatment then fly half a dozen segments, essentially wasting my comp. I gather that an airline that comps a traveller looks for some kind of minimum committment?

b) Should I consider changing my preferred FF program altogether? Is American's program (or the program of some other carrier with a strong schedule out of Chicago) worth the switch?

c) Should I try to get and keep mid-tier status on two airlines?

d) I'm not exactly tickled with the HHonors program. Worthy competitors? How about a comp to that program's highest tier?

e) I still haven't bitten the bullet and joined an airline club such as the RCC (my company won't pay for it). How would you handle this given my circumstance.

Thanks for your help.

Mike