Thanks for the help and timing recommendations. For Alaska we plan to get to ANC Wednesday night and leave on a Saturday night/Sunday morning redeye. Will probably just try to see Seward area. If I wait until I have "enough" time off I'll never travel!

The MR is AMEX Membership rewards points - can xfer to Frontier if 10K ANC-AUS seats are available, or will likely be used as Avios. My hotel points are Barclays Arrival.

I can position with WN (hope to have 2 Companion passes in 2014), or I can drive to IAH like I am this November, so I'm not worried about finding 4 seats as long as I can use either alliance. So I guess my goal between now and December will be to get to 280K United miles/UR points so we can do the entire Europe/Morocco trip on either Star or Oneworld. I just have a sneaking suspicion that there will be a point at which US Airways miles will be neither Star nor Oneworld.