do you know the status of the complaint

I agree with you 100%. If they are allowed to set fares in whatever crazy structure they want to then customers should be able to buy them as they want to also.

I must be stupid but they have not caught me in 3 years and all the while due to my frequency and ff program level I have not sat in the back in the last three years - so whos stupid - certainly not me but the airline since i even book online throught their site.

Notice how there is nothing in there about no status miles being accrued for discounted fares. Guess that trial balloon that USAirways put up didn't hold much air, and UAL said, nah, let's not do it.

if, for back to back ticketing, the market forces you to book the same airline, my advice is, book the second ticket with another alliance-ff-program (or none at all if you really don't have/want a second).

Have never intentionally done back to back myself on UA or another carrier. But a couple of years ago I was challenged by an AA phone agent on what he suspected was back to back ticketing. Part of the airlines definition of back to back includes the language "... for the purpose of circumventing minimum stay rules..."

I did have two tickets which had been purchased at different times and the order usage of the tickets criss-crossed but had the two tickets been purchased at the same time and in flight order, all minimum stay requirements would have been met, hence no fare rules were violated. After checking with a supervisor, he agreed no rules were violated.

Bottom line is the airlines do check this and can easily do so by auditing all travel under a FF number.