griffindodd Welcome to the forum

Airlines in the large alliances all have many frequent flyer partner airlines that you can earn and burn (use) ff miles on.
SW has a limited range of freq flyer partners: not a lot of use for international travel.
USA based airline freq flyer programmes tend to be far more generous than non USA ffp's:- earn to burn is what matters

BA operated short haul flights are only UK to Europe. You may be getting confused about using BA avois to book award flights on AA domestic flights (short haul) with BA avios:- these can be good value. The AA ffp charges high cash surcharges on BA operated long haul flights booked with AA miles.

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