Originally Posted by
jareckik
My plans for 2010 have me flying from China to San Fransisco, Vegas, NY, Seattle and then maybe Mobile, or Atlanta. I do not know the airlines i will be flying yet I was planning to choose the airline based on which FFP I choose. It looks like the best flights are on Asian carriers.
I will look into ways to upgrade on Transpacifc Flights on the different carriers. Thank you for all your advice and pointing my research in the right direction.
UA is the only possibility I can think of that fits your travel pattern and has a relatively good international upgrade policy. However, since you won't be 1k (at least the first year), you'd need to trade for or purchase SWUs (miles upgrades aren't a very good deal; I should also add that purchasing SWUs is against the rules, so keep a low profile if you decide to go that route).
That having been said, KE looks like it might be a better overall fit for your travel needs because you'd get one stop access to all of the cities on your list, except for Mobile, of course.
I considered KE's FFP a few years ago and was most unimpressed. However, that was before DL came out with its crazy new award chart, so maybe KE is worth looking into. As a mid tier elite, you'd probably have a decent chance at getting an opup or two. What's more, I'm guessing they have some sort of mileage based upgrades.