For the past several years, my company's preferred (required) airlines were American and British Airlines. I was very satisfied with their frequent flyer programs, especially American's, however, my company has negotiated contracts with new airlines. We can no longer fly American or BA. the new carriers are United and the Star alliance airlines; and also continental; KLM and Northwest. Question: which of these airlines should I start using and which airline's program should I start accumulating miles on. I would automatically choose United if I were not concerned about them going out of buiness and my loosing all of the miles that I will bank. On the other hand, I have been reading pretty discouraging things about Northwest and Continental's flyer programs on this board. I assume that I would do no better with KLM, since they are tied in with Northwest and Continental. All of my travel is to Brazil and argentina is South America, and to Europe. any advice would be greatly appreciated.