This is just a thread to document some of the struggles of a newbie to frequent flier programs.

So I knew I was going to have to fly a lot this year, when normally I hardly ever fly, I thought I might as well sign up for some of the airline's frequent flier programs to see if I could get a free flight or two out of all of my business flying. The first couple of times it works out great, I sign up for the airline's program and get some miles.

Then I start flying on some partner airlines. Rather than sign up for a new account, I say hey, let's put these miles on my existing accounts. So the first one is a Delta flight, and I already have an Alaska account. For some reason, the Delta website just would not accept my Alaska account. So, that's fine, I'll tell the Delta people on the day I fly. Well, not being used to doing this, I forget. So I go on their website later and see if I can still get my miles, well, you need to have saved your boarding pass. Didn't know that as a newbie. Lesson learned.

I then fly on a island jump with Hawaiian. I don't see any options to use any program other than theirs, and since I'm not going to be on Hawaiian anytime soon in the future, I think there is no point to getting a Hawaiian account. Later, I realize they do have partners, and I had one of those partner accounts. I try to get retroactive credit: too late, 90 days passed.

I fly on several AA flights for business. I see I can use my JetBlue FF number when buying the AA flights, I input my number. Several weeks later, when I don't get JetBlue credit, I read the fine print and see that JetBlue only gives credit for a couple of AA flights. Nuts. So I ask Alaska to give me credit instead for those AA flights I already flew. They deny me credit because another airline has already given me "credit" (JetBlue).

All of these issues were initially the fault of the airline and subsequently my fault for not understanding their systems well enough. Lessons learned. But for all of you "churning" or whatever (I've been reading up on this stuff), and taking advantage of the airline's programs, you're just part of the yin and the yang of FF programs. Airlines take advantages of novices, experts take advantage of them. Survival of the fittest.