Probably a stupid question, perhaps I am missing something obvious, but…

I see the mega- churn posters talk about “million miles in a year” or some other great number. But when I see their details – it’s spread amongst many cards.

In my mind, 100,000 on USAIR + 100,000 on DELTA + 100,000 on UA is NOT 300,000.

(It’s just an example, not specifics or real numbers…)

Is there some way of magically combining these? Am I missing the point? Or the fine print?

If I were trying to accumulate 500K miles, it would be for two business class tickets, together, to Europe, not several different domestic coach fares…no?