How does one increase affiliation ranks?

[Rekuzatus Riki]

Title. I've been playing for quite a while and mostly I won, yet still level 1.
Am I missing something?

[banj]

You gradually complete challenges (like finish with a flush x times) that fill up a seperate xp bar from your normal rep level bar, and when it fills up you can advance a level. The first one took a long time for me. Just check out the affiliation screen and you should be able to figure it out. It's weird.

[ecavalli]

Banj is correct. You can see how far along you are toward the next Affiliation Rank on the Affiliation menu screen.

But don't worry, you aren't doing anything incorrectly, it just takes a while. I believe I was around level 60 when I reached Rank 2 for the first time.

[Himitsu]

So.. challenges = best or all the XP for affiliation?