Punki, I think that is totally fine, and quite a good idea.

The way to totally hide this "trick" from the airline is to fly on 2 separate airlines. So Ticket 2 is on WN taking you to SFO (the return) on WEd morning, and Ticket 3 is on AS wed afternoon to LAX. THat way you have a saturday stay in both destination and origin as far as each airline knows.

I know, it splits your mileage, well, see if you can do it on two partners to pool them into one account.

As for the initial one-way trip, take the train, AS has the amtrack promotion I believe to get miles on west coast trips... discussed somewhere under alaska's forum...

Or, instead of an initial expensive one way ticket, by airline 3 (or 2 if you do all the same airline for the other trips) round trip, with open return, or return many weeks later for that initial flight, that way you still have a discounted return ticket, you dont throw it away, and you can start the whole process over...

MRLIMO, you are absolutely to be commended on playing a great devils advocate here, keeping all of us "honest", or at least keep us from getting totally out of hand.

TG