What is Air Canada top tier?

How can a frequent UA customer with Air Canada mid-tier status game the UA/CO 2011/2012 FFP merger?

• I will probably fly 50-100k miles/yr on Star Alliance in 2011+, and would like to end up with UA 1K status.  Should I status match AC to CO and credit all my flights in 2011 to CO FFP?

• Answer:

  Short answer: there's no magic here, if you want to end up with United 1K status, you need to fly 100,000 elite qualifying miles in a year. Longer answer: apply miles to one program consistently; be smart about where you accrue partner flights; consider using both airlines' credit cards to boost your EQM totals; and consider getting a head start by status matching from Aeroplan to an intermediate airline and then from that intermediate to CO or UA (or both). Apply Miles to one Frequent Flyer Program This will sound pretty basic, but if you're flying on United, Continental, Air Canada, Singapore Airlines, ... , any carrier in the "Star Alliance", you can choose to accrue miles to any Star Alliance carrier's frequent flyer program. If you want to be a UA elite, the basic strategy is that you should pick UA or CO and make sure you accrue all your miles on all your flights there. If you're frequently flying on UA metal, you should be a UA elite; and if you're frequently flying on CO metal, you should be a CO elite. Accrue to the carrier whose metal you fly on most frequently. Short reason why: the way the United unlimited domestic upgrade / Continental elite automatic upgrade is set up, you're higher on the list if your elite status is on the "home" carrier. (A 50k mile UA elite is ranked above a 50k mile CO elite on UA metal. The situation is vice versa on CO metal.) (By the way, one perk you should know about being an Aeroplan elite: an Aeroplan Star Alliance Gold card gets you into any United Red Carpet Club, Continental Presidents Club, US Airways club, or any other Star Alliance lounge whenever you have a departing *A flight boarding pass. Most people can't get into Red Carpet Clubs for free when flying within the US, so you should treasure your Aeroplan elite card!) Be Careful Where You Credit Partner Flights You've read that at the end of 2011, United will add up your 2011 EQM from United and your 2011 EQM from Continental and treat them as one combined number for determining 2012 status. So if you want 1K, you need 100,000 EQM. Fun fact: if you're flying on a Star Alliance partner, you may get different amounts of EQM for the same flight depending on whether you credit the miles to your UA or CO accounts. Before each flight on a *A partner (not "Continental" or "United") look at  http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6722,1177,00.html for United's full list of airlines / fare codes / EQM accrual rates, and http://www.continental.com/CMS/en-US/marketing/custcomm/promotions/Pages/AirlinePartners.aspx for Continental's full list. An example where it matters: if you're traveling on a Y fare on Singapore Airlines (full-fare economy) you'll get 100% EQM if you apply the flight to your United Mileage Plus Account, versus 150% EQM if you apply the flight to your Continental OnePass account. Be especially careful with intra-continent flights on partner carriers overseas -- the rules can be pretty bizarre inside of Europe and Asia. (Save your boarding passes! On UA, at least, you can almost always get credit by faxing them in along with a nice letter saying what you want.) Other Ways To Get EQM Suppose you're not sure you can hit the 100,000 EQM based on flight miles alone. Are you SOL? Yes, mostly. One other way to get EQM on United is with credit card spending -- the program with currently available cards is up to 5000 EQM at 1 EQM per dollar spent on flights at http://united.com, see details Similar story with Continental's cards -- some of them offer 1000 "flex EQMs" per $5,000 spent and some offers carry no maximum, so in theory there is a way you could spend $500,000 in 2011 with a credit card and earn 1K status for 2012 without ever taking a single flight. Do your homework on the current credit card offerings and make sure to maximize the benefits from both carriers, since the 2011 numbers will be summed for 2012 accrual purposes. Getting a Fast-Track With a Status Match You mention that you're a mid-tier Aeroplan elite. You might be interested in getting a "head start" on UA or CO elite status -- you don't really want to fly the 50k miles to become a Gold, you'd rather start with it right now. Here's the bad news: you can't status match directly from Air Canada to UA or CO because all three are in the Star Alliance and because of their "no poaching elites" policy, they'll say no if you ask for a match. But you can status-match to someone else (for example, Delta Gold) and then use your status with that intermediate carrier to match over to UA or CO. Check the Flyertalk thread on status matching for details (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milesbuzz/883029-new-airline-status-match-master-thread.html). As an example, you could status match from Aeroplan mid-tier elite to Delta Gold by sending them a fax; your new status will show up within days, but it will take them weeks to mail you the card. You could then status match from Delta to Continental by sending them a faxed copy of your card (they are particular about wanting that) and start out as CO Gold in early 2011, giving you a leg up on Continental flights. Separately, you could also status match to United -- they'll offer you a "challenge" (see the thread for details) where they give you elite status right away, and then you fly X miles on United flights within 90 days and you get to keep the status for the year. Matching to CO is free and just takes a fax. Matching to UA is also free, but you only get to keep the status if you actually fly on United (the "challenge" part). You can only status match to a particular airline pretty much once in a lifetime per airline (maybe once every decade or two, no one is keeping close track -- but not once a year!). There's probably no downside to status-matching to Continental since they won't exist in a year. There is of course a downside to status matching to Delta, Alaska, etc. since then you won't be able to status match to them again -- if you ever want to become a DL elite in the future "fo realz", you'll have to do it the old-fashioned way, by actually flying the miles. As with "accrue to the airline you actually plan to the fly" above, the rule here should be that (if you want to go this route) you should match to the carrier you actually plan to fly with -- a CO Gold membership is an interesting relic but not too useful if you're also a UA elite and never flying on Continental.