Fast Tracks to Elite Frequent Flyer Status (2021)

Easy Access to Valuable Travel Benefits, Airfare Booking Strategies

Some of the most valuable travel benefits are available to elite-level frequent flyers. Airlines reward their best customers with premium cabin upgrades, free access to enhanced economy seats, lounge access, and priority lines at the airport.

However, even the lowest-level elite status normally requires earning 25,000 qualifying miles each year (with that airline or its partners). Higher-level status, which is required for better benefits and a real chance of an upgrade, usually requires 50,000 miles, 100,000 miles, or more. With the biggest US airless, there are minimum spending levels as well. For example, low-level status requires spending at least $3,000 per year on airline tickets, while the highest level of status require spending $15,000 per year.

Many people simply are never going to fly enough to qualify for status, especially if their flying needs to be split across multiple alliances. Other people fly enough to get some level of airline status, but not enough to reach a higher elite status level with more valuable benefits.

The good news is that there are several “fast tracks” to elite frequent flyer status. By crediting your miles to the right program, taking advantage of status challenges, spending money with the right credit cards, and/or reaching a high-level of hotel status, you can achieve frequent flyer status with considerably less than the normal amount of flying.

If you are planning a burst of travel activity or a particularly long international itinerary, make sure to consider a status challenge or crediting your miles to a frequent flyer program with lower-than-normal qualification requirements.
If you are coming up a little short of reaching a higher status level, investigate your options for getting a boost from credit card spending, especially with American Airlines and Delta.

Jump to

Automatic airline status from your hotel status
Lowering elite status requirements through credit card spending
Status matches and challenges
Specific status challenge and match opportunities
Choosing the best frequent flyer program for earning your miles

If you have elite hotel status, you may be able to get elite airline status as well——without flying a single mile. Several frequent flyer programs have partnered with hotel programs to provide benefits to each other's existing elite members. For example, United elite frequent flyers get benefits at Marriott hotels and Marriott elite members get benefits with United Airlines

Marriott Elites. Marriott elites get benefits with a few different airlines.

United Airlines	Titanium elites get United Silver (low tier) status. Silver status entitles you to complimentary access to Economy Plus seats at check-in, the possibility of an upgrade, free checked bags, priority service, and extra frequent flyer miles on your United purchases. It also entitles you to low-level Star Alliance benefits on every Star Alliance airline. Reward Plus program.
Emirates	Platinum elites get Emirates priority check-in and boarding. Even Marriott Gold elites earn 3 Marriott points per dollar for their Emirates flights on top of earning Skywards miles. Your World Rewards.

Hyatt Elites. Explorist and Globalist elites get access to special "status challenges" to earn status with American Airlines. While doing the challenge, they get to take advantage of the corresponding American Airlines status benefits. Even Discoverist elites earn 1 Hyatt point per dollar spent on American Airlines flights on top of their American Airlines miles.
Shangri La (Golden Circle) or Taj (Inner Circle) Elites. Shangri La Jade and Diamond members get automatic KrisFlyer Silver status (low tier). You are automatically upgraded to Gold status (mid-tier) after completing a required number of flights on Singapore / SilkAir, within the first four months of registration. Jade members need three eligible flights, Diamond members need one eligible flight. Note that this gives you Star Alliance benefits as well.

Shangri La also has an alliance with Taj Hotels. So, if you have Taj Gold status, you will be automatically matched to Shangi La Jade status and can then match that to Kris Flyer status.

Lowering elite status requirements through credit card spending

Unlike hotel status, you CAN’T get airline elite status simply from having the right credit card. But SPENDING money on certain airline credit cards can help. These cards earn qualifying miles that count towards status and/or reduce the amount of qualifying dollars that you need to spend on airline tickets each year.

With a few airlines like Delta, American, JetBlue, Spirit, and Emirates, it is possible to achieve elite status from credit card spending alone, without taking a single flight.

But the more valuable approach is to use credit card spending to boost you a smaller amount of qualifying miles to the next status level. For example, if you are only 5-10,000 loyalty points away from American Gold or Platinum status, you can get the rest of the way with "only" $5-10,000 of credit card spending over the course of the year.

All credit cards that make it easier to achieve airline status

American Airlines Executive Card Guide	American Airlines Executive. 10,000 QMs (in 2021) or 10,000 Loyalty Points (in 2022) with $40,000 spend. $450 annual fee, includes Admiral Club Access.
Aviator Card Guide	American Airlines Aviator Business. No qualifying miles, but $3,000 elite qualifying dollars in 2021 with $25,000 of spend in a calendar year. With the change to AA Loyalty Points at the end of this year, elite qualifying dollars is going away.
Aviator Card Guide	American Airlines Aviator Silver. Earns 5,000 QMs (in 2021) or 5,000 Loyalty Points (in 2022) with each $20,000 of credit card spending, up to a maximum of 10,000 ($40,000 of spend). $50,000 of spending also earns $3,000 “qualifying dollars”, which won't be relevant after 2021. $195 annual fee. You can't apply for the card directly; you need to start with the Aviator Red and upgrade.
Delta Credit Card Guide	Delta Platinum. Earns 10,000 QMs with each $25,000 of credit card spend, up to a maximum of 20,000 miles ($50,000 of spend). For 2021, you'll receive a Covid-related 25% bonus—each boost is 12,500 QMs rather than 10,000. You might get additional QMs as part of the signup bonus. $25,000 of spending waives normal “qualifying dollar” requirements, for all but the highest level of status. If you get both the business and the personal versions, you can earn a total of 40,000 qualifying miles each year, and you can also earn additional QMs from the Delta Reserve cards. But you can't earn QMs from multiple versions of the exact same card. Unlike the Reserve version, your bonus qualifying miles can NOT be transferred to another account. $250 annual fee, includes companion certificate.
Delta Credit Card Guide	Delta Reserve. Earns 15,000 QMs with each $30,000 of credit card spend, up to a maximum of 60,000 QMs ($120,000 of spend). For 2021, you'll receive a Covid-related 25% bonus—each boost is 18,750 QMs rather than 15,000. You might get additional QMs as part of the signup bonus. $25,000 of spending waives the normal “qualifying dollar” requirements, for all but the highest level of status. You can earn additional QMs from both the personal and the business versions of the Delta Platinum cards and the Delta Reserve cards. But you can't earn QMs from multiple versions of the exact same card. You can also transfer the bonus qualifying miles to another user's account, allowing a couple to build up large amounts of qualifying miles in a single member's account. $550 annual fee, includes SkyClub access and a companion certificate.
Southwest Credit Card Guide	All Southwest Cards except the Plus version. Earns 1,500 QMs with each $10,000 in spending, with no maximum.
United Credit Card Guide	United Cards. United status is primarily "spending" based, with a small reduction in required spending for people who take a large number of flights. For example, it normally takes spending $10,000 to earn 10,000 Premier Qualifying Points to qualify for Gold status. United cardholders can earn 500 PQPs for every $12,000 they spend. This is normally capped at 1,000 PQPs per year, but United Quest cardholders can earn up to 3,000 PQPs this way (with $72,000 of spend) and United Club cardholders can earn up to 4,000 PQPs (with $96,000 of spend).
JetBlue Credit Card Guide	JetBlue. Earns Mosaic status with $50,000 of credit card spending (but you won’t get the normal 15,000-point bonus that you earn when you qualify the normal way). $99 annual fee.
Air France KLM Card Webpage	Air France KLM. 60 XP (Experience Points) upon approval, plus 20 XP each anniversary year that you spend at least $15,000.
Frontier Credit Card Guide	Frontier. Every dollar you spend on the credit card counts for one status qualifying mile. You can spend your way to whatever status level you want. The card is a great way for semi-frequent Frontier flyers to make sure they get to the next status level.
Virgin Atlantic Credit Card Guide	Virgin Atlantic / Delta. You'll receive 25 tier points for every $2,500 you spend in a month, with a maximum of 50 points for $5,000 in spending. Over the course of the year, you could earn up to 600 tier points. Qualifying for Virgin Atlantic status gets you some benefits on Delta (and a few other airlines). Most notably, Virgin Atlantic Gold members receive receive bags and complimentary Comfort+ upgrades (at check-i) when flying Delta, and SkyClub access on trips that include a flight to or from the U.K.
Spirit Airlines Credit Card Guide	Spirit. You'll receive 1 status qualifying point for every $10 you spend on the card. It takes 2,000 points to qualify for Silver status and 5,000 points to qualify for Gold status. For very frequent Spirit flyers, Gold status will save a lot of money through free seat selection (including exit row seats at booking), free bags, and a free drink and snack on every flight. Without any flight activity, it would require $50,000 of spending, but this status is primarily worthwhile for people who are flying frequently enough that they are likely to be already earning a lot of status qualifying points from their flying.
Emirates Credit Card Webpage	Emirates. You'll get automatic Emirates Silver status when you get the Emirates credit card, and will re-earn your status any cardholder year where you spend Spending $20,000 with the card. The $499 per year Emirates Premium Card comes with Gold status for your first year and allows you to re-earn status with $40,000 of spend. Unfortunately, since Emirates doesn't belong to one of the big three alliances, your status won't entitle you to extra benefits on other airlines.

Earning high-level status on Delta with credit card spend

It is possible to achieve high-level status on Delta just by spending a LOT of money with their credit cards.

With the higher boosts available in 2021 and the carryover of MQMs from 2020, it is much easier to qualify for status during 2021 than the plans outlined below.

You can qualify for Delta's Platinum status with a combination of one of the Platinum cards and one of the Reserve cards. You'll need to max them both out for a total of $170,000 of credit card spending. Total annual fees are $800. But you only need to qualify every other year to maintain your status. If you use the personal Platinum card, your best option is to focus on supermarket (or hotel or restaurant) spending as much as you can. If you use the business Platinum card, your best option is to focus on purchases of $5,000+.

You can earn a few more miles and slightly reduce the required spending, if you use both the personal and business version of the Platinum card to earn a total of 30,000 MQMs ($75,000 of spend), reducing the amount you need to earn from the Reserve card to 45,000 MQMs ($90,000 of spend). But that will take up three Amex credit card slots, instead of two, and cost $1,050 in annual fees. You can't simply switch all your spending to the Platinum cards, because you can't earn boosts on two of exactly the same card and you can't transfer Platinum-card boosts to other people.

If you receive MQMs as part of the signup bonus, you'll need to spend less during the first year you have the cards.
If you've already had a Delta card for at least a year, you can reduce your annual fees and required credit card slots by converting your card between versions during the year. You need to start your spending when it is a Platinum card and then start over once you upgrade to a Reserve card. You'll pay a weighted average of the annual fee over the course of the year (some amount between $250 and $550).
If you want Delta's highest-level Diamond status, you will need to earn 125,000 MQMs and also spend a total of $250,000 to waive the MQD requirement. The most efficient way to earn the MQMs is by earning 20,000 MQMs with a Platinum card ($50,000 spend) and 105,000 MQMs with two Reserve cards ($210,000 spend). But, if you are converting between versions each year and are able to take advantage of bonus categories, it may be more rewarding for you to earn 40,000 MQMs with two Platinum cards ($100,000 spend) and 90,000 MQMs with two Reserve cards ($180,000 spend).

Of course, the more efficient way to use the extra MQMs is to provide a boost to the qualifying miles you earn by flying, rather than trying to do it all with credit card spend.

Unless you are earning MQMs as part of the signup bonus or have already made a lot of progress towards a status level, it is less worthwhile to shoot for Delta's lower-level status. In a normal year, without any points from flying, you'd need to spend $50,000 on the Delta Platinum card to get most of the way (20,000 MQMs) to entry-level status, $100,000 across the personal and business versions of the Platinum Card to earn 40,000 MQMs, or $90,000 on the expensive Delta Reserve card to earn 45,000 MQMs.

Earning low and mid-level status with American Airlines

American Airlines requires flying at least 30 segments per year to qualify for many of the more valuable benefits of high-level status such as systemwide upgrade certificates, along with higher levels of credit card spending.

But it doesn't take that much credit card spending to qualify for low or mid-level status on American:

Even if you didn't earn any loyalty points from flying, you would "only" need to spend $30,000 to achieve low-lever status and $70,000 to achieve mid-level status. At an opportunity cost of 1.5 cents per point, this works out to $450 or $1,050.
But if you spend $20-30,000 on most American Airlines credit cards, you'll also earn a valuable companion certificate (or some flight discounts), reducing the cost of the spend. Get 2 for 1 Airplane Tickets with Credit Card Companion Certificates
One strategy would be to spend money relatively early in the year to bump your status for almost two years.
But the more likely strategy is to use credit card spending towards the end of each year to simply top off the miles you've already earned from flying.

American Status for Alaska Flyers

If Alaska airlines is your primary airline, you might consider using American Airlines as your loyalty program. American Airlines elite flyers get many of the same benefits when flying Alaska as Alaska's own elites. This is especially true at the lower status levels.

By crediting your flights to American, you'll have the option to use credit card spending to close the gap to the next status level, something that isn't possible with Alaska's program. You'll also get benefits when flying JetBlue.

Status matches and challenges

Another way to lower the barrier to elite status is to take advantage of status matches or challenges.

There are three basic types:

Status Match. With a status match, your existing elite status from one airline is simply matched by another airline. You need to somehow earn elite status with some other qualifying airline first.
Status Challenge. With a basic status challenge, you can qualify for elite status with a much smaller number of qualifying miles, as long as you can earn them over just a few months. For example, rather than needing to earn 50,000 qualifying miles to earn mid-level status, American Airline’s status challenge might require you to earn only 12,500 miles in the next 90 days.

Combination Status Match-Challenge. Many airlines combine a short-term match with a challenge. The airline will match your status from another qualifying program for a limited period of time, typically 90 days. If during that time, you fly a minimum number of miles, you'll keep access to your status for another year, until the end of the year, or until the end of the following year.

Some status matching strategies and tips:

A single long-distance trip is often enough to earn status through a status challenge—consider your options whenever you have an opportunity to earn a lot of miles in a short period of time. This also works to extend your existing status to another airline through a combination match-status. This is a great option if you know that you are flying an extraordinary number of miles in the next few months, but are still unlikely to qualify for status based on your total travel for the year. For example, if you have an economy-class trip to Africa or India, or any intercontinental premium cabin trip, you might be able to earn enough miles to earn at least low-level status via a challenge.

Qualifying miles earned from credit cards don’t count for status challenges. You’ll need to earn the points by actually flying. In addition, in many cases, only flights on the airline's own planes will qualify for the challenge.

You can use a status challenge to get temporary benefits for an upcoming trip, even if you don't think you'll be able to complete the challenge. Most programs give you status benefits as soon as you start the challenge. You can leverage those benefits on an upcoming trip (and earn a lot of extra bonus miles) even if you have no hope of actually completing the challenge. If you don't already have status with another program, you'll need to limit yourself to programs with simple status challenges, rather than a combination match-challenge.
You can use status matches (or combination match-challenges) to extend your existing status across alliances or time. Obviously, it is much easier to do this with straightforward status matches than combination status match-challenges, as you don't need to meet any mileage requirements.

The most straightforward strategy is to extend your status across alliances. If you achieve elite status with an airline from one alliance (via flying, a status challenge, credit card spending, etc.), there is a good chance you can get it matched from an airline in one of the other two alliances.
Get the status you want by qualifying with an easier program. If the program you are interested in does status matches, you can get status by first qualifying with a program that easier qualification criteria and then matching to the program that you really want. Unfortunately, most of the US programs will only match status from other US-based programs.
It is also possible to parlay elite status over time. When you get a status match, your benefits usually extend a bit beyond the end of the following year. Before your status expires, you might be able to get it matched with another program, extending the expiration date by another year. This can be kept up for a few years, by switching from program to program. Keep in mind, that most airlines won’t match status with another airline in the same alliance. So, if you want to extend your status within the alliance, you’ll need to match with a different alliance first and then match that status back with another airline in the original alliance.

Most programs limit how often they will grant a status match or challenge—make them count. For a frequent flyer program that is important to you, you want to make sure that you will be able to get enough benefit in any given year. For example, Alaska Airlines will match your status from any other North American airline, but officially only once per lifetime. Choose your opportunity wisely.

For smaller foreign airlines, you might be more comfortable taking advantage of any status matching opportunity that is available. For example, if you are taking a flight on Emirates and you don't expect to fly them again in the next few years, you might as well try to get a match. You can always choose a different program the next time you need to. Similarly, if you are flying on an unaffiliated airline, which you may not fly again, you might as well take advantage of a status match when you can.

Make sure to consider the benefits you'd get from status with a partner airline. If the airline you are flying doesn't offer a status match, you may be able to get one with a partner. You'll still be entitled to some of the benefits, like priority airport lines, bonus miles, free bags, lounge access, and/or preferred seat selection.
You can’t use a status match to increase your status level at an airline where you already have status. For example, if you have mid-tier status on Delta and low-tier status on Alaska, you can’t use an Alaska status match to move up to mid-tier status.

Specific status challenge and match opportunities

The first stop to get more information about status challenges and matches is StatusMatcher.com. There is a page for every airline program, where fellow travelers post information about whether they received a status challenge, a status match, or not. On the summary page, you’ll see a “C” or “M” next to airlines that often offer status challenges or matches. Clicking on an airline will show detailed reports from each traveler.

Many airlines don’t publish webpages that detail their status match programs, so you’ll need to call customer service and inquire.

Air Canada (Aeroplan)	Usually offers a status challenge that lowers the requirement for mid-tier status to 18,500 miles in 90 days. May still be on hold due to the recent changes to the Aeroplan program. Try emailing status.match@aircanada.com.
Alaska Airlines	Offers a combinations status match-challenge to anyone who has status with any of the other North American airlines, without much problem. Will even match to their top-tier status. But you can officially only do it once per lifetime. Choose a year when you’ll get good value. You'll get immediate access to status benefits at a level that corresponds to your status with the other airline. To keep your benefits beyond the initial 90 day period, you need to fly 5,000 miles on Alaska's own flights for MVP status, 10,000 miles for MVP Gold status, and 20,000 miles for MVP Gold 75K status. If you start the match-challenge after July 1st, status from a successful challenge will last until the end of the following calendar year. Alaska Status Match webpage.
American Airlines	Usually offers a challenge for Gold or Platinum status. However, you’ll often need to pay a fee to take part. The Gold Challenge costs $100 upfront and lets you earn Gold status with 7,000 EQMs and $1,000 EQDs. The mid-tier Platinum challenge costs $200 and requires 12,500 EQMs and $2,000 EQDs. If you take the Platinum challenge and don’t wind up qualifying, you can still get Gold status if you exceeded that level's requirements. Targeted offers often don’t require an upfront fee, have options for earning higher-level statuses, and/or have lower qualification thresholds.
Delta	Delta typically offers a combination status match-challenge. To get your initial match, you need to have “earned” status with one of about a dozen major airlines. You will then be matched to the corresponding status on Delta for three months. During that time, you'll receive the benefits of the Delta status level. If you want your status to extend past the initial three months, you need to earn 6,250 QMs for Silver, 12,500 QMs for Gold, and 18.750 QMs for Platinum, plus meet a qualifying dollar amount or waiver, during the three month time period. Note that you won’t get a “Choice Benefit” when you reach Platinum status through a challenge match. You can take advantage of this every three years. Delta Status Match webpage.
Southwest	Southwest offers a combination status match-challenge. They will match your elite status with another domestic airline for 90 days. To keep your status for another 12 months, you need to fly 6 one-way segments during the 90-day period. Southwest Status Match webpage.
TAP Air Portugal (Star Alliance)	You can match status with most airlines (except other Star Alliance partners). You can only match to Gold status, but that is enough for lounge access when flying United and other Star Alliance partners. The only catch is that you'll need to purchase 4,000 TAP miles or subscribe to their "Miles & Go" membership. The cheapest option is to sign up for the membership at a cost of 99 Euros (a bit over $100) per year. Not only will this complete the qualification for the status match, you'll also receive 2,000 bonus miles when you first sign up, plus 1,000 miles and 50 status miles each month and a 15% bonus miles. This is a great way to get mid-tier status for a year (but you'll need to take some TAP flights if you want to keep it after the first 12 months). Official Webpage.
Turkish Airlines	Turkish Airlines usually offers a combined status match-challenge. They will start out matching your existing status for four months. A single international segment on Turkish airlines will extend your status to a full year and earning 15,000 qualifying miles will extend status for two years.
United	Like Alaska and Delta, United offers a combination status match-challenge. They will match your current level of status with another major US airline for 120 days. During that time, you'll enjoy most of the benefits of United elite status. You can take advantage once every 5 years. Status earned after July 1^st lasts until the end of the following year. If you want your status to last longer, you’ll need to fly 4 PQFs and earn 1,000 PQPs for Silver, fly 6 PQFs and earn 2,000 PQPs for Gold, and fly 10 PQFs and earn 3,000 PQPs for Platinum, during the four-month time period. United Status Match webpage.

Other airlines that often offer status matches are Alitalia (SkyTeam), Cathay Pacific (Oneworld), Copa (SkyTeam), Emirates, Hawaiian, JAL (Oneworld), Jet Blue, Virgin Atlantic and LATAM (Oneworld). Sometimes, matches are only available on a sporadic basis.

Easier mid-level status

Most Americans are likely to choose to earn miles with Alaska's, American's, Delta's, and/or United’s frequent flyer program, rather than with one of their alliance partners.
However, it can be considerably easier to earn status if you credit your flights to a foreign frequent flyer program. Regardless of which airline you fly, you can credit your miles to any program in the alliance. For example, if you are flying United, you can credit your airline miles to Asiana Airlines, instead of United. By doing so, you can reach mid-tier status with only 40,000 miles flown over two years, rather than needing 50,000 miles in a single year. Furthermore, with Asiana, there is no additional requirement to spend a minimum amount of money on tickets, like there would be with United.

When you earn mid-level status with a “foreign” airline, you’ll get many of the same benefits that you would get from having status with American, Delta, or United. For example, you’ll get free checked bags, access to priority lines at the airport, and lounge access. It doesn’t make a difference if you get status with the foreign airline, or the domestic airline—you’ll get your benefits whenever you are flying any airline in the alliance. Note that low-level status with an alliance airline often doesn't provide the same benefits as low-level status with the domestic carrier. For example, low-level Star Alliance and Oneworld flyers don't get free checked bags on United or American / Alaska.
However, there is a big drawback—you are only qualified for free upgrades when you are flying the airline that you have status with. Lower level elites don't get upgraded to premium seats very often anyway (at least on popular routes), so this may not make that much of a difference.

But even lower level Alaska, American, Delta, and United elites often get access to extra-legroom economy seating (or at least free advanced seat selection) and you won't always get that when you have status with a foreign airline. Star Alliance elites get NO preferred seating benefits when flying on United. SkyTeam elites get the same access to regular preferred seats as Delta elites but have greatly reduced Comfort+ benefits. Only Oneworld elites get the same access to regular economy preferred seats and to Main Cabin Extra seats as the airline's (American, Alaska) own elites.

On the other hand, gaining status with a foreign airline has one advantage over getting status with American or United—if you can earn at least mid-level status, you'll get lounge access in American or United lounges, even on purely domestic itineraries. If you earn the same level of status directly with American or United, you don’t. With SkyTeam or Delta, you never get free access to lounges on domestic itineraries.

If you are aiming for mid-level status (lounge access), the following are the easiest programs to qualify for.

Star Alliance (United)

Egyptair. For most people, Egyptair is the easiest program to earn and keep Star Alliance Gold status. You’ll need to acquire 30,000 QMs to get to Silver Status, but you can spread this out over any length of time. Once you’ve reached Silver status, you only need to earn an additional 30,000 QMs over TWO years to get to Gold. Then once you’re Gold, you only need 30,000 QMs every TWO years to keep your status. That's 30,000 QMs every two years, versus the normal 50,000 QMs every year.

In addition, (as described below) Egyptair is the only program that lets you earn qualifying miles from your family member’s flights. A couple only needs to average 7,500 QMs per year to earn Gold status for one of them.

Asiana Airlines (Korea). If you aren’t planning to share your elite status qualifying miles with others, Asiana airlines is a good option. You need 40,000 QMs every TWO years to qualify for a two-year period. Then you only need 30,000 QMs over those TWO years to re-qualify. That's a little harder than Egyptair, but Asiana is a better program for using your miles and has its own US branded credit card.
Turkish Airlines. Like Asiana, Turkish Airlines operates on a two-year cycle. While you only have one year to earn the 40,000 QMs to initially qualify, status will last two years, and you only need 37,500 QMs over those TWO years to re-qualify.

But if you have status with another airline / alliance and are planning to fly Turkish, you may be able to take advantage of their status match to make it easier. Once you match, you'll have status for 4 months. If you take one international flight with Turkish, it will be extended to a full year. If you then earn 15,000 QMs on Turkish international flights during that year, you'll get an extra year.

Aegean Airlines (Greece). If you can fly on Aegean, they are another easier-than-normal option. Earning 12,000 QMs in 12 months (including 2 Aegean-operated segments) gets you to Silver status. Once there, earning another 24,000 QMs in the following 12 months (including 4 Aegean segments) gets you Gold. Then you only need 12,000 QMs (including two Aegean segments) or 24,000 QMs (without the Aegean flights) to re-qualify.

SkyTeam (Delta)

Air Europa. Air Europa is the easiest program for earning SkyTeam Elite Plus status. It requires 12,000 QMs to reach Silver level. Once there, you'll have a year to earn 32,000 additional miles to reach and maintain Gold. Air Europa has a distance-based award chart, which can represent either very good or very bad award prices, depending on the length of the route. They are best for very short or very long flights. One downside is that Air Europa doesn’t partner with any credit card programs, so you can’t easily combine your miles with credit card points, to book tickets.
Flying Blue. Air France and KLM’s Flying Blue program uses "Experience Points" rather than qualifying miles. The number of XPs you receive is based on the class of service and distance buckets. It normally isn't particularly easy to earn the 280 XP you need to qualify for mid-level status. However, you may be able to take advantage of some quirks to qualify much more easily. On even the shortest international segments, Flying Blue gives you 10 XP in Premium Economy, 15 XP in Business, and 25 XP in First. If you have the opportunity to take very short inexpensive international flights, you'll quickly earn enough points without flying a lot of miles or spending a lot of money.

Oneworld (American)

British Airways. British Airways bases their status level on “tier points” rather than qualifying miles. The flight miles to tier points conversion rate is not fixed but is typically around 60:1. Thus, you only need to earn the equivalent of about 36,000 QMs per year to get the 600 tier points for gold status. Unfortunately. you’ll also need to make sure that at least four of those flights are on British Airways. So British Airways is a good choice for some people, but unworkable for others.
Iberia (Spain). Like British Airways, Iberia bases their status on “elite points” not qualifying miles. If you book full economy, business, or first-class tickets, you can earn status with far less than the normal amount of flying. But if you buy discounted economy tickets, it will take far more than the normal amount of flying.
Japan Airlines. For some travelers, JAL can be an unbelievable way to maintain Oneworld mid-level status (Sapphire). Once you qualify for JAL’s Sapphire tier, you’ll have an opportunity to join their “JAL Global Club” for two years. As a member, you’ll automatically have Oneworld mid-level status. To keep your membership, you’ll only need to earn 25,000 QMs per year. And if that isn’t good enough, you also have the option of simply paying 5,000 redeemable miles for the renewal fee.

The catch is that, to reach JNB Sapphire status in the first place, you’ll need to earn the normal 50,000 miles in a year, half of which needs to be on flights operated by JAL. So, to get started, you’ll need to wait until you have the opportunity to earn at least 25,000 miles on JAL flights.