ANA works well for me. They have a US based visa card too. All flights other than Japan domestic are 1point/dollar X fare class multiplier. Once you hit platinum (mid-tier) you get 100% actual miles flown as a bonus but your EQM AKA Platinum points are calculated off the class multiplier.

Of course I always fly ANA to Asia. If I didn't, the upgrades etc would be meaningless.

A solid 2005 earning and burning miles with Mileage Plus, and then 2006 using up your SWU's (if you make 1K) as many upgrades as you can, may be worth it. Sign up for Visa's, 20,000 + upgrade it to Gold, then 10,000 more miles with convenience checks. Pretty healthy start. Can you get comped to 1P? What kind of status do you have?