1. What is most important to you in a frequent flyer program (FFP)?
upgrades, priority services, baggage allowance, good award redemption rates, better award access, lounge access, etc.
>>> Reply:
Award access, award redemption rates, and upgrades, in that order.

2. How many miles do you usually fly each year? How many flights/sectors?
less than 25000 miles, 50000+ miles and 20-25 flights, etc.
>>> Reply:
Right now all my flying is for leisure, and I'm trying to get better at leveraging credit cards and miles to expand my opportunities, so I don't have a good answer for this.

3. What fare class do you usually buy?
first, business, premium economy, economy
>>> Reply:
i usually buy economy but would prefer to use awards for business+.

4. Are you able to choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
>>> Reply:
Yes - I live in NYC so have good access to lots of airlines. Travel pretty much only for pleasure.

5. Which routes do you fly most often?
transatlantic, domestic USA, intra-Asia, etc.
>>> Reply:
domestic USA but definitely interested in more international travel

6. What is your home airport?
>>> Reply:
NYC (LGA ideally but any of the big three)

7. Do you have status in any FFP? What is it? How miles do you have banked in each FFP, if any?
>>> Reply:
nothing worth mentioning, just a few miles here and there

8. What are your preferred airlines, if any?
>>> Reply
Delta

i have an upcoming flight to Hawaii and am planning on banking the miles to VS because it works out to a substantially better amount than Delta, but I don't know if I should be concerned at how it's apparently impossible to book awards on Delta flights with either VS or FlyingBlue. I know VS isn't skyteam but I'm not sure if that's enough of a reason to rule it out considering how many more miles I'll get with how the fare coding translates (three legs of a flight in D = 400% miles and halfway to a status upgrade).