Originally Posted by
shanshan
Thank you very much. I will indeed reconsider this. I am moving to Orange County area. Once I arrive, I will see if folks there fly Delta/NWA often. I am under impression they do AA/UA and I will need to join them on flights. I'll be doing mainly SNA/NYC flying. Some SNA/DCA for which I think Delta/NWA would be a decent option. At worst case it will allow a backdoor into a different airline alliance program. I haven't had any affiliated credit card before.. only have the regular Amex gold card right now.
Others here could better comment on your routing concerns, but if it turns out to be something that works for you, note that if you fly Delta moderately (say, 50K BIS miles annually) *and* are able to earn hefty EQMs (MQMs with Delta - Medallion Qualifying Miles) via the Amex cards, you might be able to secure their top of four standard elite tiers (
Diamond Medallion, at 125K MQMs). This would afford you benefits you probably wouldn't get by coupling moderate flying (again, say 50K BIS miles) on some of the other airlines with the more limited (and in some cases, nonexistant) EQM earning opportunities via credit card.