So I fly on vacation to asia about once a year. From Dulles KE seems to have the best bang for the buck, nice seats and full IFE in economy. Not to mention the best regular prices.

In the past I used an NCL credit card exclusively, but a year ago they changed to a poor replacement program. I have switched to other cards, though I am not maximizing by using one plan only and want to buckle down for best effect. The Korean plan seems ok, but at some point the positives vs the negatives are a bit fuzzy.

Long story short, if you are an american and all of your flying for business (not much any more, 5k or less) is on united, but your vacation flying is to China, Vietnam, Thailand Japan and the like... What would you do? Is it worth it to become a skypass member and rack up the miles in korean or should I go with a delta number and accumulate the miles via the partnership.

I dont hope to achieve enough "on metal" miles in a year to get status, so thats a non-starter...

I'm not rich and the long trips are not for business, so purchased seats are always econ.