Hi there,
I have been looking into OW frequent flyer programs for a while now. Looking for help narrowing down my choices.

Expected Yearly Travel - 50000 miles max
Type - Long Haul Segments
Airlines - Multi airline itinerary. Not possible to fly multiple segments with any one OW airline alone. Will mostly travel on OneWorld tickets combining 2 or more airlines on one journey.

Note: Maximum segments with one any one OW airline will not exceed 2/3 for a round trip.

Example from my upcoming trip

Outbound -

KHI - CMB > Srilankan UL
CMB - BKK > Cathay CX
SIN - SYD > Qantas QF
SYD - AKL > LAN

Inbound -

AKL - KUL > Malaysian MH
BKK - CMB > Srilankan UL
CMB - LHE > Srilankan UL/Codeshare MJ

Aim/Target :

Obtain

Ruby - First Year's Travel
Sapphire - Second Year's Travel
Emerald - Third Year's Travel

And then try to retain Emerald in subsequent years by flying 50,000 miles on various OW partner airline annually.

Having looked at the comparison charts, it seems like with a 50,000 miles annual ceiling only these options make sense. I wont pay any attention to the sector flown threshold option to reach status set by each airline as I never fly that many sectors within a year. Instead focus on achieving status through long haul miles flown with 12-15 sectors flown each year.

1. Royal Jordanian -

Emerald - 55000 tier miles with 50000 for re-qualification. NO min RJ miles
Sapphire - 35000 tier miles with 30000 for re-qualification. NO min RJ miles
Ruby - 15000 tier miles with 12000 for re-qualification. NO min RJ miles

2. Srilankan

Emerald - 60000 tier miles with 55000 for re-qualification. 30K min UL
Sapphire - 40000 tier miles with 35000 for re-qualification. 20K min UL
Ruby - 20000 tier miles with 15000 for re-qualification. min 1 UL segment

The biggest catch it seems with Srilankan is that one must fly minimum 30000 miles on UL of the 60000 annual threshold. That's simply impossible to do unless there are long-haul codeshare flights available to Australia/New Zealand or USA/Canada

It seems like Royal Jordanian doesn't ask for any minimum mileage of the total 55000 miles to be flown on RJ to acquire or retain Emerald status.

I am leaning towards RJ solely for this reason even though I won't be flying even a single sector on it on my way to Emerald status, but rather frequent with Cathay, Srilankan, Qantas and Malaysian.

Seems like Royal Jordanian RJ has the easiest and most flexible program for medium mileage leisure travellers. And would be the easiest option with which to acquire Sapphire/Emerald OW Status and also retain it.

Have I made the right choice, or is there a hidden catch with RJ Royal Plus program that I seemed to have missed?

Many thanks for your help with this query.