Normal miles are usually referred to as redeemable miles or RDM for short. These are used to book award tickets. They can be earned by flying, through CC spend, online shopping, various promotions and many other ways. Since you don't fly much and want to get international award tickets, this is what you need to focus on.

Elite qualifying miles, or EQM, determine your elite status with an airline. These are usually earned only by flying. You usually need to earn at least 25,000 EQM in a year with the same airline to qualify for things like checking free baggage, seat upgrades and other perks.

Flying usually gets you both RDMs and EQMs. All other mileage-earning activities usually get you just RDMs.

Hope that clarifies things for you a bit!

Why do people think starwood is so good if it's 2:1? Maby i'm reading that wrong. Does it take 2 starwood points to get one US Airways mile?

It's 2:1 for United and Continental.US Air is 1:1

Just to clarify, ffI's original question was if you fly on US--i.e., the IATA code for US Airways. Here on FT (FlyerTalk), we tend to use a lot of abbreviations, especially when it comes to airlines and airports (i.e. "you'll fly on US out of PHL," instead of "you'll fly US Airways out of Philadelphia").

The potential confusion between US and the U.S. is one reason I always use periods after the letters when referring to the country, but not everyone is so meticulous.

More info on our lingo can be found at these two links:

http://www.flyertalk.com/glossary/
http://www.flyertalk.com/acl/

The Barclays card for US Airways (code: US) offers some generous perks to people who regularly fly US Airways (code: US), which is the point ffI was originally making,