Or you can diversify your flying to attain mid-tier status on a number of programs thereby giving you choice when you need it! In my case I'm aiming for Delta Gold Medallion (Skyteam) via status match, whilst maintaining the United Premier Gold (Star Alliance) and Qantas Gold (OneWorld) status I have. The key in all of this is being strategic in the flights and routings you book to hit the various sweet spots in the program. For instance a J flight on AA from HNL to NYC can easily earn 500 status credits return depending on routing and those flights tend to be relatively inexpensive (~$2000 AUD)
-RooFlyer88
OT. I have read your comments/ views in another thread as I was thinking about doing the same however as you have posted in this thread I will respond here. Prior to Covid I spent a lot of time in planes and hotels, on the back of work and personal travel I have been a WP since Moses was a boy and retained QF P1 since around 2013, VA WP for about the same same time frame and in the 3 years running up to covid had earned more than enough SCs to gift x2 SG and x1 WP status on this site, I also maintained *G with SQ. Let's just say I have high status (platinum or equivalent) with multiple hotel chains. Most of the major places I travelled to be it airlines or hotels are well and truly covered.
During covid I have benefited form extensions and as the airlines put out status matches I applied for most initially out of curiosity to see how far I could push things and most of the match requirements have been extended and I have lost interest. As far as I am aware, I am currently:
QF - WP1 (extended)
VA - WP (extended)
SQ - SG (extended)
QR - WP (matched from VA)
QH - First (matched from QF, VA or SQ cannot remember) and will never use.
NZ - *G (matched from QF, QR or VA cannot remember) and still need to meet the requirements, if not yet expired.
AZ - Volare Executive Club (matched from QR which as another match)
I may have status with other airlines via the past 2 years from matches and challenges but could not be bothered looking through email records. There has also been other challenges or status match offers that I just lost interest in.
As travel is picking up I may be the odd one out on AFF as I have actively used covid as a reason to reduce my travel. Dropping from 150-175 flights per year down to 10-20 and this is still to much in my books. I currently value the school drop offs/pick ups, IMO chasing status is over rated and for the record I have never done a status run be it anywhere and on any carrier.