The only miles I can effectively use would be UA, and of course that was a factor for choosing Eva in the past, but the difference in fare is a lot more than the value of the miles. If If go for one of the expensive direct flights, I guess I might choose ANA over Cathay for that reason, although it seems Cathay has a much nicer hard product and a slightly better schedule, maybe I could make use of JAL miles from Cathay, but in the past my JAL miles have always expired before I had enough to make use of them.

I thought CI's safety problems were all in long in the past, I guess I'll do some searching on the net...