Hi l'avion,
I am no one to give you advice and am a newbie too, however, I did find a good source of avice about the best frequent flyer programs that I thought was great. Posted to his personal blog by FlyTalk's own Gary Leff. I don’t know him personally but he is a major miles maven. I guess he is sort of a cross between Alan Greenspan and Martha Stuart, without the prison sentence, (as far as I know anyway

) His blog posting discusses a Conde Nast Traveler article in which he is quoted about at least 9 out of 10 tips that are attributed to him. His blog posting and a link to a PDF of the Conde Nast Traveler arcticle can be found here:
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfr...talk-exploits/
I am sure that this article has been discussed in the forums but I haven't found the thread yet.
I hope this helps some, and please let me know what you finally decide.