I sent you a private message (PM) with some resources. Hope that helps.

I would suggest finding a travel buddy who can not only split travel costs (taxis, airport transfers, i.e) but also help in the accumulation hotel and airline points/miles so that you can plan longer stays somewhere. My sister and her best friend travel together a lot while splitting costs and pooling their hotel points and airline miles together.

There are a lot of helpful people on here but the main thing to remember is that you have to help yourself first. Like stated above, the search function will help you....a lot!! There are a lot of people that come on here and just ask for help without trying first and they get blasted by the (us) members. If you're reading up on things and following the blogs, then people are usually friendly. Just don't take things too seriously if somebody does blast you. Make it through and you will have a great time and learn a lot from the people on here. If there is anything that I can do to help you then PM me and I will try my best. Good luck in your travel adventures.

search and search again...research.
go to the airline's website to find out about their programs and earning opportunities.
It's a lot of dry reading but it is worth the effort.

Sorry to derail your topic, I have to ask somewhere (Google didn't help):

I understand I don't get award miles by flying an award ticket. The question is if I get status miles by flying an award ticket?

How do I accrue status miles at all by accruing miles from on-the-ground promotions?

EQM's, MQM's or butt in seat= bis miles are aquired by flying on a paid ticket. Though Delta/Amex have a relationship with some of their cards were you can earn MQM's and waive MQD's. Delta and UA besides flying 25,000 miles you have to spend $2,500 on tickets excluding taxes and fees to make lowest tier. Also I beleive it's Delta and UA again who have hotel programs you can earn 150-250 EQM's per stay at certain brands of hotels. Good luck with figuring it all out even some of us who have been flying for years are having trouble this year with all the new requirements. Life is not getting easier lol. Hope this helped a little instead of confusing you.

I appreciate you wish to help and by the complexity of your answer I see you are knowledgeable on the topic but please consider:

- I am not a native English speaker.

- I don't want to hurt your feelings but I am probably not the 1st one to say your grammar is, well hard to understand. OK, I can correct some of your words (aquire > acquire) but I have still no clue what do you mean by 'bis' besides unknown acronyms to me and it was all in the first sentence.

Speaking of acronyms, is there an 'official guide' to that or how on Earth I suppose to find out for example https://www.google.com/search?q=eqm+...Aflyertalk.com

Yeah, everyone says I suppose to use the search but see the above helpful results I get. :D

I also did not yet buy into this one: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/exter...h-america.html

Any help?

He gave you the answer ;) "butt-in-seat", but this is an unusual expression for me also.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/glossary.php

By the way, the answer is that you are not going to get status miles for award flights. Maybe there are some tricks out there for the well-connected (Raffles?? ;)) but it is true for most of us.

If you live in France I believe you can acquire up to 4 "Qualifying Flights" towards your Flying Blue status by taking out an American Express Flying Blue Platinum card. You will need 15 "Qualifying Flights" to get silver status and no award flights count.

Except for that I do not know of any other scheme for obtaining status on the ground in the EU.

Click glossary at the bottom of the page. BIS miles = Butt in seat miles. Miles actually flown on paid tickets.

Ooops. I totally missed that glossary so far. Google brought totally inferior glossaries to my attention.

And thanks for clearly explaining the situation with status miles. Just as I expected.

Word missing from the Glossary! VFT?

Do you have some context?

Maybe VFT is www.vielfliegertreff.de?

That is totally possible, since the source was oliver2002 from Germany (I don't know where).