New job has some great travel coming up, and I expect at least the same for the next few years, plus personal travel. I am currently an AS MVP.. AS has limited international benefits but great ones for someone living in SEA. That said, I'm going to be doing a lot of paid business class travel, and it seems getting upper tier status on a carrier with int'l routes and network seems a good idea (ie why lose the EQM class of service boost when on Korean air, etc). For work, I'll be traveling to nrt/pek/icn/sin in asia, plus some india and australia travel, possibly other places. Paid business for long haul. Personal travel is who knows other than one europe trip coming up and that's in coach.

The main goal for me is maximizing status at this point, hence trying to pick one carrier. Earning miles is secondary (I've got a ton on AS, and will earn on this new carrier). Quality of service is a meh because say I pick DL, I can fly korean air through most of asia.

I've flown 5k thus far on AS this year noted below, plus here's what else:

complete 5000 on AS (non-alliance but earns EQM from DL, AF, AA, and gives EQM to the same)

booked
4755 DL biz (Skyteam)
1320 ANA (star)
557 Korea Air (Skyteam)
5206 Korea AIr biz (skyteam)

10000 DL econ (Skyteam)
1500 Malev (Hungarian, OneWorld but wikipedia says they're a DL codeshare)

partially booked
4500 AS (mostly has to be AS but could also go to DL or UA in some cases)

Likely travel this year to also include US to India, SIN, SYD in one trip and I can likely steer to a particular alliance - so figure possibly another 20k miles. USA travel probably add another 10k.

I leave in 12 days for 15k miles of EQM and need to pick where I'm going to put it. DL seems like the best choice, what do you think?

I have no problems walking away from the 5k of EQM already earned on AS and starting over/status matching with them for the rest of the year. I suppose I'm best looking at anyone sky team... and DL seemed natural since they're in my country. I can stay on AS and lose out on the korean air EQM (8k?) but have no alliance status. ALso - I will likely get a priority pass, or club membership, depending on where I end up, for my non-biz class flights.

Hopefully this doesn't start an uproar/flame war. I really just want to maximize what I'm going to be earning.