Star Alliance elite qualification

So I'm a bit of an internet addicted insomniac and the last few nights have been dedicated to figuring out how to maximize my FF miles. I barely qualified for Silver Elite on Continental last year and now haven't been anywhere since to take advantage of the benefits. BUT, I'm definitely looking forward to being able to check 2 bags for FREE on all flights. So I discovered this blog post:
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/onemileatatime/2010/09/24/dont-forget-about-aegean/#comments
which basically tells you how to qualify as Star Alliance Silver after only 4,000 miles flown. Compared to the 25k that I had to fly last year on CO to make it, that's a ridiculous bargain. Thought this community might find it useful if you only take a couple of flights a year but they're generally on Star Alliance (Continental, United, US Air, Luftanhsa, BMI, etc). Free bags and some priority lines are nothing to sniff at! For 20k miles, you can get gold status which means lounge access, even when flying US domestically on Star Alliance, which means free food & booze and a little quieter area to relax. I'm totally kicking myself for not doing this last year instead of killing myself trying to hit 25k (hello, flying LGA-LGW via BOS and CLT).

That's a great offer! I'm a frequent flier on United, but I almost always fly discounted economy, not full price. So we only get 50% miles on Aegean -  we'd need to fly 8,000 miles in that case - still not bad. 

Yea, that's still only basically one transatlantic round-trip from anywhere but the East Coast.