I travel a lot but have never used just one airline. I now realize that using one airline could be much more useful than using multiple as I have been doing. I am looking to become elite with either us airways, delta, united or even american. I have over 200K credit card points I can transfer to any airline but I guess that will not get me elite status, only flown miles apprently.

I can buy chairman status on US airways for 4K which is an option as well.

Anyone know any tricks? Can I use all these credit card miles to buy elite status with any airline?

My main goal of going elite status is first class upgrades so any tricks or tips for this would be greatly appreciated!

Please advise!

Where do you fly? First class upgrades are pretty tight, these days. I certainly wouldn't pay US $4k for Chairmans.

Some airlines may have a challenge that allow status for flying 10, 15 or 25k miles in a 90 day period. Check out the UA and AA forums. You could also join Alaska Air's frequent flyer program. They have multiple airlines that can be credited.

Generally, I don't recommend DL because their award program can be difficult to redeem at low levels.

Even if you buy chairman status for US, first class upgrades will only be limited to domestic, and only on US. Therefore, if you don't live in one of the US hubs like PHL, PHX, or CLT, basically is useless.

Oh really? I live in Southern California and it said flights were Available from ONT to Seattle via US airways and to
Boston.

Main trip is lax to Greece and we want first class for that. I called US and they said they give you and a companion a free upgrade to first to Europe one time per enrollment so I thought that was a good idea for the 4k. But if anyone knows another way to get around that quickly, especially transferring my 200k miles somewhere, I would be glad to hear it!

Basically we travel about once a month just for fun. All over the United States and Caribbean, Europe 1-2 times a year but I have never stuck with one carrier. Upcoming
Places we are flying and would want upgrades are Dominican Republic, Seattle, Vancouver, Boston and Chicago.

Thanks!!

US don't fly nonstop from ONT to SEA or SEA to BOS, from the west coast it has to go thru their hub in PHX, from the east coast it has to go thru PHL or CLT. If there are any nonstop flights it would be codeshare with UA. For codeshare flights you don't get upgraded, it must be on US metal. Also, you don't get upgraded instantly unless you buy a full fare Y/B ticket, otherwise you have to wait until 7 days to departure, people who buy a higher fare ticket will upgrade ahead of you, there is no 100% guranteed you will get the upgrade.

On US F class, there is no meal being served not unless the flight is 3.5+ hours, anything less than that is only snack basket.

You pay 4K for the status and getting one time companion upgrade, so basically you are paying for your companion ticket.

If you fly only once a month, and even with 1-2 times to europe, you would not be able to maintain Chairman status thru next year.

Since you are interested in traveling to Greece (my country), let me give you a couple of tricks:

1. If you have at least 1 mile with US this year the price drops to 3K. If you cannot take a cheap flight, buy a US club membership that comes with 5K PQMs for around $350 and save a thousand dollars.

2. If you buy up in October then your status will be good until 2015 and you will receive two pairs of upgrade certificates (or the equivalent if the merger is completed), one for 2013 and one for 2014.

Enjoy!!

Thanks for the info. That I what I was thinking I would do, use them to fly once or twice before hand then buy the cheaper upgrade and use the vouchers but wait until October since it would then be valid until feb 2015.

Thanks!

If your care about redemption, them you may want to go a little more research. In late April or early May the Clark Howard show had a segment on airline redemption availability. Someone did a report on it. United and Jet Blue were at the top (with availability for more than 80% destinations checked) and delta was at the bottom with simmering like 20% availability. I can't remember where American and US air were (on was good the other not and the comment made was about what will happen with the merger).

If you want to travel LAX to Greece in F, you won't be able to do that on US, since they only have J on transatlantic flights, not F. You'll have to look at UA, LH or LX for transatlantic F, and investigate whether any of them ever upgrade into F.

Upgrades into F would be from C/J, not coach, and probably not even on deeply discounted business class fares.