Originally Posted by
joshwex90
When you fly a couple hundred thousand miles a year, yes. If you're not flying as much, it's nice to to be able to bank most of your travel to one program to be able to redeem it at some point. (That's more of sticking to a specific program/alliance.)
I disagree.
If you're only flying 10-15K miles per year then you'll almost always do better by showing loyalty to your wallet rather than an airline or alliance.
If you are flying 25-50K/year there are marginally better returns but it will very much depend on the spread you're paying to the airlines to earn those miles.
Only when you start accruing miles in large quantities - and redeeming them at high valuations - do they hold real value over other loyalty, cash or reward schemes that are out there.