Originally Posted by
Sereisina
Is Alaska Airlines a place where miles don't expire? Would that be a better option for me with my FF miles spread out over multiple carriers?
You just have to post some kind of activity to your AS account every 2 years and that keeps all of your miles active. No earned miles, no matter how old they are, will expire as long as you do that.
You'll find different opinions on whether to consolidate in a single program vs. spreading across programs. I think most Flyertalkers consider miles to become worth more per mile when you reach the level where you can redeem at least 2 long-haul round-trip J tickets. In some programs, there are pockets of great value for short-haul Y, but those are often a rare exception. So someone on a long slow crawl to 200,000-ish miles probably doesn't want to embark on two or more even longer slower crawls. If the crawl is too slow, you're exposed to devaluations...lengthening the crawl even more.
On the other hand, if you're regularly buying paid J to India, you can be pulling down 40k-ish miles per trip. Banking in two programs gives you more redemption options and you're still not waiting too long before you're at a level where you can redeem great awards.
Whatever you do, I just know I wouldn't want to be in a position where I felt like my FF choices were causing me to buy the $4000 ticket when the $2500 one is available. On J fares with that kind of range, none of the FF benefits are going to make up for $1500 per trip.