nowhere near as valuble as airline status but also

starwood gold - amex plat
hilton gold - citi chairman

Based on a 25k requirement and the travel patterns the OP stated I am not sure why you would not earn elite staus unless you are spreading these trips across several airlines.

Perhaps the OP just doesn't fly enough...

If you can't scrape together 25k miles in a year to earn basic status then you really have to ask yourself is it worth having status?

Well, I do fly enough - just that I often do it with different airlines. For example, I am flying to Finland next month, Germany in December, and starting in January I do my trade shows - 8 in the USA in CA, WA, TX, AZ, IL, FL, GA and OH. I live in MA so that's a fair amount of flying, although it may not come out to 25k miles unless I focused on getting it all with the same airline, and then often I'd be paying much higher ticket prices or flying sub-optimal routes just for the miles.

On the other hand, if I can get platinum for life just by routing purchases I would be making anyway through specific credit cards, why not?

For the 10 or so times that I fly a year, bumps to first class would be nice, as would quicker boarding and lower prices on lounge membership. Additionally, with that many miles I'd likely get two RT 1st class tickets a year, or I could take a European trip 1st class each year - not bad for $$ I'm spending anyway.

Yes, most airline affinity credit cards have a limit to miles that can be earned per calendar year. To my knowledge, the SPG card does not. If you concentrate your spending on this card, you can do two things:

Get SPG Gold status after 30k spend
If you transfer the SPG points to AA miles, you can get AA Gold after 800k spend. There is no fee to transfer these points.

DC has a tax to convert their points to miles, as does Amex.

If you charge that much and could use an AmEx-family card at those places, you might look into an AmEx Centurion card. It's not cheap, you may have to establish a track record with a lower-level AmEx card before you can get it, but it comes with mid-tier status in a few airlines. Lots of threads on it in the AmEx forums.

Airlines will only give miles to the traveler, not to someone else he/she designates. The way those deals generally work is that the miles go into the employee's account, the company tracks how many miles the employee should earn through business travel, and requires him/her to get an award ticket for his/her next trip (or for someone else's) when the balance is high enough. No miles are transfered, so the question about transfering miles is moot.

Some airlines (e.g., but not only, AA) have small business programs where a company can also earn points (not FF miles, a different kind of points) for its employees' travel. The award list for those sometimes includes elite status for someone who otherwise wouldn't have it. Company points are in addition to, not instead of, regular FF credit for the traveler.

again, OP could spend $250K on an amex plat, and you can get cent for $2500 a year.

comes with DL CO US gold status.

http://www.delta.com/skymiles/about_...ance/index.jsp
http://www.continental.com/web/en-US...e/default.aspx
http://usairways.com/awa/content/div...s/default.aspx

thats mid tier on DL and CO, but lower on US. only star alliance silver.

Unfortunately, until you get elite status, there's a limit to how many miles you can earn each year using the credit card. I think it's 50K. Once you are Gold or better, all the limits are removed.

For what it's worth, the AA Million Miler benefits are fairly well-documented - well enough that AA sent me materials on company letterhead about it along with luggage tags that say "Million Miler" on them. When people say it's "undocumented", perhaps they mean it isn't listed on the web page that lists the usual Gold/Plat/Explat qualifying rules, but you can rest assured that if you hit 1MM today, AA will send you your Lifetime Gold letter without you having to know a secret handshake something like that. ;)

credit and charge cards that allow you to transfer points into frequent flyer programs have NO limits.

starwood amex, amex green/gold/plat/cent with membership rewards, diners club

Plus, at the risk of flogging an already-dead horse, SPG Amex gives you more flexibility and a higher yield than typical mileage cards.

Best case: you use some or most of your points on hotel stays. It's relatively easy, even for a modest midscale guest at Sheratons and the like, to justify Starpoints as 3 cents apiece in real cash return. If you are already spending a lot of money on higher-end hotels, the returns can be even higher.

Worst case: you can't find enough need for hotel stays, and you convert them to air miles at at least the same rate ($1 - 1 mile) as you'd get with the airlines' own cards. And although I wouldn't advise burning large chunks of Starpoints on miles, if you have to do it in 20k increments, you get 1.25 miles/$.

You have many airlines to choose from. The only major "catch" that might affect some is that UA is not on the list of 1:1 carriers. (I think UA is 2 SPG to 1 mile, an absolutely horrific conversion rate.) But...as long as you aren't married to UA, that's not a showstopper. Sounds like you're talking AA. They are on the list of 1:1 carriers.

the horse needs to be flogged :)

starwood amex, amex charge cards, and diners club charge card are all VERY good cards with the ability to earn as much as you want and transfer to a number of programs.

you cannot go wrong with any of them. and many of us have multiple :P

Lifetime Platinums
 

So corprorate666, I guess you are looking for a FFP which grants you lifetime platinum status.
Here I have some suggestions for you :

StarAlliance :

BMI : First you need 16,000miles to become a silver member, once done, you have to fly 38,000miles to get gold status.
And then you need 38,000miles/year to remain a gold member.
For being a gold member ten consecutive years, you'll get lifetime gold(platinum?)
BMI is VERY generous to business class and first class guests. (*2.0 and *3.0 each) So you'll need to fly only 19,000miles/year in business.

Asiana : First you need 100,000 miles to become a diamond member. (equals StarAlliance Gold) REGARDLESS HOW LONG IT TAKES.
Your status remains three years, and you need 40,000miles within those three years. I think it will be no problem for you even if you only fly economy and cannot concentrate on StarAlliance carriers.
Once you have one million miles, you have the lifetime platinum status.
Asiana isn't that generous towards business and first fliers, (*1.25 and *1.5 each) but once you achieved the diamond status, it's extremely easy to remain diamond until you get that lifetime platinum.

Asiana is recommended if you plan to get status at SkyTeam and OneWorld at the same time. Getting 40,000miles in every three years is really easy.


Lufthansa : You need insane amounts of miles and have to be over 60 years old in order to get lifetime status. Those Krauts must be kidding. I'll pass.
(Played too much "Company of Heroes" recently. :p )
(To Germans : Es tut mir leid mit "Krauts". Im obigen Spiel, das Gespraech in Deutsch in der zweiten Mission ist falsch uebersetzt. "Dein Frass ist unter aller Kanone....usw")


SkyTeam :

Korean Air : Being Korean carriers both, Korean Air's and Asiana's FFP are quite similar. The only, but huge difference is that Korean Air grants you Elite status at 500,000 miles!!!! It's insane IMO.
On the brighter side, once you join the Million Miler's Club, it's a lifetime status.

Air France & KLM : 70,000miles/year for platinum. Ten years platinum, lifetime platinum. Enough said.


OneWorld :

I have no idea. You are on your own.


The decision is yours. I hope it was of some help for you.

cya

Also, the AMEX Centurion card ($2500/ year) gets you US, CO, and DL mid-tier status.

Get a French bank account, get a French Flying Blue Amex and all purchases count toward status miles, which get you status with Skyteam. (Not a realistic suggestion, but I did want to point out that the Flying Blue Amex is one of the few cards I'm aware of where purchases get you status miles.)

How close do you live to Canada? You could get a CIBC Aeroplan card with Maple Leaf Club privileges, and this would give you business class check-in and lounge access for Air Canada (which has a good international network), with some check-in and lounge access benefits for code shares with United up to Canada. A silly suggestion if you live in Miami, but not out of the question if Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal would be decent hubs for your international travel.