Template: Easy midlevel status

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 time. Once you’ve reached Silver status, you need to earn an additional 30,000 QMs over two years, to get to Gold. Once you’re Gold, you only need 30,000 QMs, every two years, to maintain 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 person.

• Asiana Airlines (Korea). If you aren’t planning to share your elite status qualifying miles with others, Asiana airlines is another good option.  You need 40,000 QMs every two years. That’s more than Egyptair, but Asiana is generally a better program for using your miles and has its own US branded credit card.

SkyTeam (Delta)

• Air Europa.  Air Europa is the easiest program for earning SkyTeam Elite Plus status. They require 32,000 QMs each year. Mileage earning multipliers are good. 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 requires 40,000 QMs, and is a solid option for redeeming awards. Unfortunately, they sometimes have lower earning multipliers for some classes of services on partner airlines.

Oneworld (American)

• British Airways. British Airways bases their status level on “tier points” rather than 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 miles 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 option for some people, but unworkable for others.
• Iberia (Spain).  Similar to British Airways, Iberia bases their status on “elite points”, not miles. You can earn status with far less than the normal amount of flying, if you book full economy, business, or first-class tickets. But, it will take far more than the normal amount of flying, if you buy discounted economy tickets.
• Japan Airlines. For some travelers, JAL can be an unbelievable option for maintaining 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 maintain 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.