Originally Posted by MtnDew

Obviously I'm a new poster here, but I've done some lurking from time to time, though not enough to understand all of the acronyms you guys have come up with. I currently live in Seattle and do a fair bit of business travel domestically, enough to have achieved gold with Alaska Air. It looks like starting in January, I'll be relocating to the UK for at least 2 years, maybe longer. During the next 6 months I may make frequent trips back and forth, potentially once or twice a month between SEA and LHR. What I am trying to determine is what FF program it makes sense for me to pursue going forward.

BA and Delta both have direct flights, but Delta is my companies preferred carrier so it's likely I'll be flying with them. Now, both are partners with Alaska (at least BA was, have not checked in a while) so I can continue to accrue with Alaska and maintain status. Or I can join their programs and start all over, which I essentially would be doing anyway since Alaska does not have any sort of roll over.

So I see several choices:

1) Stick with Alaska and just add to my program while flying with Delta. Long term this would make the most sense as, baring unforeseen circumstances, I would be moving back to the Seattle area in 2-3 years. This has the added benefit of resulting in additional bonus miles due to my current Gold status.

2) Join Delta and start over with them. Likely I could get to at least gold, though it would take a while as with their new MQM's, it would take 8 - 9 round trips SEA to LHR. I could see my self taking that many trips this year, but after? Long term I'm not sure what this would do. Delta has been turning Seattle into a minor hub so their are a fair number of flights now, so there are opportunities to use the miles. Also, I assume it would be cheaper to book award travel SEA to LHR for my wife on Delta using Delta miles vs using Alaska miles (takes 90k Alaska) but I could be wrong.

3) Something I have not thought of?

I do have the Alaska CC that I use for most household expenses, but I would likely get rid of the card, or just not use it much for the time I am abroad.

Thanks for the help!