Hi all,

I never participated in FF programs or mileage based credit cards before.
I'm doing a ton of research trying to get up to speed.
It's a bit overwhelming so I can really use some help....

Am I getting it?
Is my understanding of mileage credit cards correct?
You sign up for a credit card and they give you xx,xxx bonus points for after you reach a certain threshold....
You can then transfer these points into miles to certain airlines they have partnerships with....like Chase Sapphire is only for United, Southwest, British and Korean Air?
Once you accumulate enough miles, you use the miles on your FF account to obtain free airline tickets.

Goals
Earn enough points to be able to afford two round trip tickets to China every year.
We plan on flying from LAX and going to WUH. Most likely connect in PVG or CAN.

Side goal: earn enough points get 2 tickets.
1. Roundtrip ticket LAX to WUH (I have to be in china for a week)
2. Roundtrip ticket from a gateway in china to PPT (vacationing spot )

Alliances/Programs
For my long term goal, I'm leaning towers SkyTeam because it seems like China Eastern and China Southern has more flights compared to Air China during the month of February.
I think most of my flights will be through MU and CZ because I don't see many Delta airline options to China. I see some going to PVG but I prefer to have 1 itinerary for my China trip and I don't want to pick up my bags and change flights multiple times.
It's a pity that I only get receive credit for 50% of the miles I travel through MU and CZ...but tough luck I guess?

Plan
Sign up for Skymiles, Delta FF program?, and start churning credit cards?
It looks like AmEx Delta cards and AmEx SPG cards are a good deal.
Does anyone have any experience booking multiple 1 way tickets?

Sorry for the wall of text. I formatted it many times and organized sentences to make it more coherent.