Alaska would seem like a good fit. Just like AA, you accrue miles on Alaska based on the distance flown, so having 2/3 of your travel being leisure travel I don't see how you could go wrong there. The upside is that they have a host of partners (AA, DL, BA, Qantas, Cathay) and Alaska's relationship with AA has actually improved some the last few years with limited lounge access and reciprocal elite benefits (early boarding, seat selection) should you fly beyond 25K.

Before moving to Alaska, though, I'd work on getting those 17K with AA up to 25K so you can at least use them for a domestic round trip (or 20K if you want to use them within Europe or within/between Australia/New Zealand for a round trip). AA does offer off-peak travel for 40K round trip and if you wanted to go to Europe or South America you could credit Alaska miles there until you hit your goal. You don't want to write off the 17K you spent some time building up.