Came across this guy who has a couple of books out on how the airline systems work. Here is his site:
I'm hoping to get a better understanding of how things work, but aren't advertised. For example, "You only need 4,000 miles on Greece’s Aegean Airlines to get silver status on the Star Alliance, and Aegean gives you 1,000 miles just for signing up. You don’t have to fly on Aegean — just to credit your miles from flights on any of the 28 Star carriers to that program. Silver status waives baggage fees on United Airlines, US Airways and Continental Airlines."
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