Yes, you're right on Alaska, although since they don't fly internationally, it's much harder to rack up the miles with 2 trips (as parent was suggesting). Incid

Yes, you're right on Alaska, although since they don't fly internationally, it's much harder to rack up the miles with 2 trips (as parent was suggesting). Incidentally, Alaska is my favorite carrier for many reasons, but only for domestic flights. As for spending with the credit card, unfortunately that isn't an option for me since my company pays for many of my tickets. And they will purchase the cheapest ticket, which often means buying it on the partner airline (e.g. Lufthansa plane but cheaper if booked as an Air Canada). Thanks for the tip on Aegean. I checked it out and looks like 24,000 miles on partner airlines without any other restrictions to get Star Alliance Silver! Looks like a winner! Status programs are really in a sad state on airlines. They are supposed to be a reward to customers but many times end up feeling punitive. For the airlines like United that have the minimum dollars spent requirement, I wish they would just make that the sole criterion, which would at least simply things!