cattboy Welcome to the forum

Look and ask here http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/infor...help-here.html

Having an ffp with 1 airline in each of alliances' is a good idea. But be aware of miles expiry. Be careful not to spend $ on airfare just to get miles which you may or may not use.

Do not sign up for Air New Zealand's freq flyer programme. Its unbelievably bad. As Air NZ is in Star Alliance and you live in the USA United Airlines is the ffp default choice. However some low priced Air NZ fares earn nil miles/points with many ffp’s (including Air NZ’s). You need to find out the booking class. A letter from A to Z. It will not be Y full economy) booking class.

AA is the defualt choice for OneWorld airlines trips if you live in USA. But is not the best for everyone.

US airways (OneWorld) allow you to claim miles for flights taken up to 6 months before you join US. AA & US have merged. The ffp's will merge some time to be AA miles.
When is your trip down under? A quirk of the US AA merger is that Air NZ is a US partner airline until June 29. So you end up with AA miles for a trip on Air NZ (depends on booking class).

Alaska is a good fpp, with many partner's, including Delta http://www.alaskaair.com/content/mil...-overview.aspx

Effectively you cannot move miles from 1 ffp to another ffp. But if you fly a partner airline you may be able to put miles to your ffp. Example flying Air NZ subject to ticket t&c's the miles could be put to your United Airline ffp account.

Edit : thread was seperate but now merged