Its probably easier sometimes to go with the local ff program because you can usually take out credit cards and do local shopping to earn points and all with credit cards and build up points/miles and then book business class flights and then you get all the perks of Gold or so with extra luggage, priority boarding, lounge access etc, etc...
There will be more than a few people on this site who do all sorts of strange things to get or maintain status and good luck to them for that, booking Qantas seats that can be hundreds of dollars more than other airlines just as good, spend hundreds or thousands of dollars flying to places to get straight back on the plane and come home, burning up points an dollars to earn that Gold or Platinum level.. I'm sure for many it makes their travel much nicer and for more than a few i think its also a boost to their egos or morale... Whatever floats your boat...
Me personally, i fly on my own dime and on personal holidays, i have from time to time got a bit caught up in thoughts of how i could spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to earn a bit of upgraded plastic card and bag tags, then each time i think it through a bit and find i just can't make it add up for me... If I spend money on status runs that is money i can't spend on my holidays or some other part of my life, if i faf around flying to nowhere and back that is leave or time i can't spend in places like Europe or the US that I really want to be in.... Plus where i live in Perth there aren't lots of cheaps status runs like the cities on the East Coast where there are many more cheap flight options...
I fly a couple of times a year intercontinental and fly business class and they are all using award seats which earn zero status credits, I'm Qantas bronze with 0 SC and yet i enjoy my travel a lot... And as i say each time i think about trying artificially for status i figure that would just be playing Qantas's game, that's what they want me to do is get some status fever that I have to spend lots of money to get to some lousy silver level which offers you next to nothing... Maybe a lounge pass... When flying Qantas and American Airlines you can buy an American Airlines 30 day lounge pass for $100 (not sure its honoured by BA) which will get you into lounges... I have applied for a couple of credit cards in the last year for free and gotten some lounge passes with them...
I bought some miles in US Airways 2-1 miles sales a while ago and just flew Perth-Bangkok-Hong Kong-Seoul-LAX-Wash DC (stop)-Addis Ababa (stop)-Johannesburg-Perth in business class with lounge access, priority boarding and all the rest for for probably less than A$2000???
None of this is to brag, just to say there are other ways to get all these perks of high status passengers just by accumulating miles and points etc and doing it smartly rather than get wrapped up in some status game if it you have to jump through hoops and shell out lots of your own hard earned rather than being in a situation where your work flies you around to get most of your status which would be very nice...
Silver really isn't worth making a lot of time and expending a lot of money to reach is what many will say anyway....