I'm struggling a little trying to plan/manage miles for trips we want to take in 2014. Some background: 4 pax, 2 boys are 10 & 12, based in SAT but can use AUS, IAH or even DFW. Wife and I are new churners starting the beginning of this year. Total points earned or on the way since then ~1.25 million, about 475K have been or will be redeemed for travel this year, highlighted by a quick whirlwind Europe trip: Paris, La Spezia, Catania, Zurich/Southern Germany.

We fly coach, any airline is fine as long as they have a decent on-time record, prefer small towns, nature/countryside and vacation rentals or local hotels.

2014 wants: Alaska long weekend July 4; and a 3-4 day Morocco tour from Marrakesh Thanksgiving week with 1-2 days in Europe on either end. Prefer any 2 of London, Palma, Barcelona, Madrid or Lisbon. The kids decide the primary destination for the int'l trip (this year Catania, next year Morocco).

Balances earned or on the way; I can easily add 10-15K to any of these per month:
AA 225K
UA 75K
US 115K
UR 75K
BA 50K
MR 140K
*Wood 30K
Frontier 40K
SW 15K + CP through 2014

The original plan:

AUS-ANC-AUS in July, 20K RT per pax on Frontier. Uses 40K Frontier and 40K MR.

Europe/Morocco option 1: SAT-LHR, PMI, or BCN on AA or AA/IB/AB, 20K per pax. Stop for 1-2 days, continue to RAK on BA/IB with Avios, or Easyjet. RAK-MAD or LIS on IB with Avios, Return on AA for 20K or UA for 30K

or Europe/Morocco option 2: SAT-LHR(20hr stop)-LIS-RAK(destination)-LIS(stopover)-SAT. 2 tix booked with US miles at 70K RT, the other 2 with UA miles at 80K RT.

But AA is harder to find 4 award seats on than UA, and there's no guarantee that US will still be Star Alliance miles in December. Frontier had lots of availability for 7/4 weekend this year, but they don't book until ~6 months out.

So I'm toying with the idea of booking SAT-ANC-SAT on United with US miles in August which would leave me with a few orphaned US miles and (maybe) less options for Europe/Morocco, but I wouldn't be at the mercy of whatever Frontier might do for the Alaska trip. And we could add a weekend trip to Yellowstone or anywhere in the Northwest with the Frontier miles.

If you're still reading, I'm looking for any tips, suggestions, tweaks or helpful thoughts. We have opened 22 cards in the past 6 months (12 me, 10 her) so we'll be taking it pretty slow on apps for the next few months, but we can get a couple more after July. Thanks in advance!