Thank you Mia..for some reason I had it set in my mind that AMex could transfer to Alaska. Thanks for making me look again. Evidently all my reading over the last few days resulted in mental overload.
Brendan- you are telling me exactly what I needed to know. I knew abou tthe merger but thought it was into the star alliance not out of it. And I didn't even consider using British Airlines as the transfer program. I will do some more research into avios and OneWorld. AA was one of the first credit cards I applied just for miles. Since that was over 4 years ago I should be able to get a 50,000 mile cc.
Thank you both!