Hi everyone - I've been searching and reading all the threads and wikis and I love Flyertalk. I wanted to ask for your help to see if what I've learned will work.

Background: I just took a new job where I'll be traveling significantly in the US. So far I have planned roughly 30k miles worth of travel in Aug/Sept alone.

Question: How do I maximize my status and membership on my airlines, car, hotel, etc.?

Airlines:
I currently fly Continental but I have no status. I've asked them to confer silver out of goodwill, but obviously that didn't work. I was thinking of trying this with United but not sure if they'll be accepting of it. Based on the wiki, it seems that the optimal thing to do is do an AA challenge to Platinum and then status match it to the airline of my choice.

Hotel:
I have a 3 month challenge with Marriott to gold.

Credit Card points:
I've added Membership Rewards Points to my corporate Amex ($75) and changed my SPG Amex to a Premier Rewards Amex so I could pool points into one rewards system

Car:
My company uses Avis and I have Avis Preferred. Nothing really to do here to get to Avis first, but I figure that'll happen quickly.

What do you guys think? It's alright for a frequent flyer newbie?

home airport?, destination cities?.....is dl or wn an option?....does ua and/or aa cover your territory?....good luck...

edit to add....work bis mi/year?

Home: Seattle
Cities: Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Durham NC, Charlottesville, VA

I'm sure I can flights on UA and AA
Delta is not an option - I don't really like them. Southwest is ok, but they don't appear on our corporate booking sites often.

Miles per year - Rough guess is maybe 60k - though I haven't fully built my schedule yet.

I'm not that familiar with AA, but I didn't think you could do the AA Challenge unless you had status at another airline. Is that correct? You should leave all options on the table, including DL. Not liking them seems like an odd reason. I get pretty good UG %'s as a GM. You can sign up for the AA cards with 75K bonus miles in another thread, get 150K miles, get status with AA, and then fly free wherever you want and have status. I'm getting the 150K AA miles, but I don't have status, so I'm sure no upgrades, free bags, or any other perks I get with DL.

Here's the page on the wiki: http://www.flyerguide.com/wiki/index.php/Challenge_(AA)

It looks like that anyone can ask for a challenge as a short cut to Elite status if you're a significantly flyer.

That's true, I should dismiss Delta for not liking them. My goal is to get status of some kind then transfer it to the airline of my choice. Miles aren't an issue - it's the EQM/EQP that I need to get.

Huh? BIS miles are EQM.

If you want to do CO/UA, you could get one of the CO CC that provide Elite Access, not much different than you would get being Premier/Silver. Fly the miles, and when you get to 50k, you'll be *A Gold for the rest of that year and all of the next.

It sounds like you only travel domestic, though, so it's hard to say if status is going to make much of a difference. Some 2P get upgraded frequently, some 1K do not - all depends on the flight you are on.

I would signup for a co and ua card right now since they will be merging at yearend. with the miles and flights that youll be taking you'll get your status up really quickly.

actually I would wait until 7/19 before signing up for UA... check Frugal travel guy's log..