(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, LAX, MCO, etc.)

LAD


(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.)

Discounted economy


(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k)

25k-50k


(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Premier, M&M Senator etc)

Only Silver on TAAG's Umbi Umbi! I do have 20,000 tier miles on SAA's Voyager.


(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? (Frequent upgrades on travel, priority services when flying the airline, good award redemption rates, free lounge access, etc.)

Lounge access, then upgrades.


(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc)

Africa to Europe and Middle East.


(7) Preferred Airlines

From Star alliance preference is as follows starting with the best that I use regularly:

1) LH
2) ET
3) SAA (NB. I currently use SAA the most after TAAG)
4) TAP


(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?)

Both. I can choose airline. Normally stuck in Economy.


The question

I fly an increasing amount and presently have no loyalty to any airline.

But I think it is worth joining a scheme as I may soon start to be able to do over 50k in tier miles now and have decided Star is best alliance as I am Africa-based.

I would like to know if I am best off with SAA's Voyager or possibly with LH's Miles and More or TP's Victoria or ET's Sheba. Or am I best off with Aegean, Asiana, Turkish or another?

I do fly on EK a fair bit as it is convenient and its miles are accruable on Voyager and, also, supposedly on Victoria (Victoria has never given me miles on EK and it doesn't respond to my emails for claiming). Voyager seems best for airline partners, but I think Miles and More is better in terms of non airline partners. Meanwhile Turkish is about to start flights to LAD in early 2015 but I would have to avoid EK on Turkish scheme.

What do you recommend?