Dear all, thanks in advance for any help you can give. This is my first post and I'm new to this whole world and forum although I have been racking up miles and paying for trips for the past few years.

I live in Iowa which makes my home airport DSM for the most part but a pretty cheap flight can usually get my to ORD MSP or DFW which is the usual stops elsewhere.

I probably fly less than or close to 25,000 miles a year and value award flights and economy over status.
I currently have mostly gotten my points by credit card offers and then redeeming them for domestic flights which may or may not be the best use of my flights, but it's just what I have done.
I don't know how much one has to fly to gain meaningful status so I don't know the answer to that quesion.
I am also wondering if anyone has any input on which alliance to go with. The places I want to go are limitless (I'm a pretty casual leisure flyer with not too many concrete plans) I mostly am looking for affordable and cheap tickets anywhere for a new experience rather than status ect.. those would be nice bonuses though.
Right now I don't have a preference of who I fly, but I have about 30k points with both American and USairways as well as tickets with southwest. I have gone through BA, Delta, and United (using their CC deals) but don't have any points left.
Other ways to earn points would be with hotel stays or gas as I still live at home and have very little bills. Most of my time not working offshore on an oil rig I spend traveling to see friends all over the US/world.
I'm sure there are a host of other questions to narrow down this but that's a good base for now. I am basically looking for a little advice on which carrier(s) seem like viable options if I wanted to become more loyal and try to utilize one alliance or FFP to get the most bang for the buck. Also, any suggestions on how to get more FFP besides CC or which would be a good option based on that being the way I'm getting most of mine please let me know.