I do virtually no business class travel. The concept I am having trouble with is starting from nothing, then reaching the different status levels (the first year), then maintaining status in subsequent years.

Pick a FF Program, say US Airways

Achieve Silver Status @ 25K miles = 25% status bonus

Achieve Gold Status @ 50K miles = 50% status bonus
Does this mean only 20K additional miles are needed for Gold Status?
(50K � 25K) / 1.25 = 20K

Achieve Platinum Status @ 75 K miles = 75% status bonus
Does this mean only 17 K additional miles are needed for Platinum Status?
(75K � 50K)/1.5 = 17K

Achieve Chairman Status @ 100K miles = 100% status bonus
Does this mean only 14K additional miles are needed for Chairman Status?
(100K - 75K)/1.75 = 14K

Initial path to Chairman Status requires 25K + 20K + 17K + 14K = 76K miles

Maintaining Chairman Status only takes 50K miles plus 100% status bonus?

Is this the basic path to status?

I chose USAirways by default because it is the dominant carrier in the CLT to BOS and CLT to PVD markets. I usually take 2 trips home to see family each year.

Thanks for your input.

John

Welcome to FT!

Ah, if only it were that simple. The mileage bonuses you speak of only count towards earned miles, not elite qualifying miles/segments/points, depending on which program you're talking about. You have to either purchase fares in higher booking codes that have EQ(M/S/P) bonuses (eg on CO, you get 150 percent EQM but only 100 percent ERM for tix booked in Y and H) or fly in discount economy and hope that your program gives you 100 percent EQ(M/P/S)s (to use CO again, any fare booked in the discount econ. booking class earn 100 percent only if booked through their website and flights on the main US ST partners, NW and DL, only earn 50 percent EQMs).

As a leisure traveler, this means you either have to A: be rather wealthy and have lots of free time or B:use creative routings and discount fare buckets to do mileage runs. For more info on MRs, check out the FAQ sticky on the Mileage Run board. As a college student, I definitely fall into the latter category. Hope that helps.

For some reason (I'm guessing data storage/bandwith issues, although the former hardly seems relevant as the CPGB of a HD right now is less than dollar. Could also be a database mgmt issue for the admins., which I could understand being a very legitimate concern), the FT boards don't like redundant posts, so if you don't want to raise certain peoples' ire, I would highly recommend doing a search of the forums to see if you can find an answer before posting. I am not one of said people and am happy to take the time to respond to questions like this.

Again, welcome to FT, but please do go over the TOS, as some of the stuff in there isn't necessarily stuff you'd think would be frowned upon (not criticizing the TOS or the way site is run in anyway, as I am speaking in general terms and simply making observations). I've learned this the hard way (FT is a drug and not having posting privileges for a week sucks big time) and don't want others to make the same mistakes I did (again, I am not saying anything specific/criticizing any decsions made by any admin as this would a violation of the TOS).

Also, if any of the acronyms we use, like EQM or SSSS or PAX confuse you, just look in the Glossary under the Help tab at the top of the site, to the right of the big FT logo.

Welcome to FlyerTalk! This belongs in Milesbuzz where I will move it.

--richard, moderator