Originally Posted by dvs7310

One thing I'd add to this for the OP's benefit and understanding of the various programs. Being located in the US, you're already at a huge disadvantage for any of the big 5 North American based FF programs. They're all essentially credit card programs and there is a HUGE glut of unused miles in North America from the giant sign up bonuses and regular spend on the cards. Miles are actually a lot harder to come by most of the rest of the world and giant sign up bonuses are the exception than the norm. Therefore you have the supply vs. demand issue of AA, UA, DL all charging ridiculous amounts of miles for their own flights overseas. You really want to redeem on partners since those are at a fixed cost (in terms of miles) however being based in North America you're also severely disadvantaged because, well, so does everyone else who has miles and knows anything about the program, so partner awards to / from North America are snapped up quickly on release and many partners don't release more inventory until close in (dates near your travel date). Living overseas and using a North American FF program makes a huge difference because I'm always redeeming on partners and there's not nearly as much competition for the award space since I almost never redeem to / from North America.

There's another approach if you'll earn most miles from your DONEx or similar premium cabin tickets. You can credit everything to an overseas program that has decent awards to places you like to go. (and you'd also get domestic lounge access in the US with status in a foreign program). Many airlines give a lot more seats to their own frequent flyer program than they do partners. I see availability all the time on CX intra-Asia that's unavailable to OW partners, and still at CX's base (saver) rate. Having said that I don't think CX MPC is the best place to credit a DONEx. QR is quite similar, they have a lot of availability on their own flights but often QSuite flights are at 2x of saver rate. (Still a lot better than AA on their own flights generally). Those aren't the only two examples but you really have to compare award charts and see if it makes sense to you. It doesn't do you any good to have a million miles in any program if you're unable to use them for anything enjoyable. Also pay attention to non-Alliance partners, for example QR has Rwandair which is great for hopping around Africa. AA has TN and FJ, which are not only good for getting to the South Pacific but also can be used for connecting fights to Australia and New Zealand.

A further thought as well, both AA and AS typically credit very advantageously on a DONEx, even if they aren't great to get out of North America directly on a redemption. Accumulate a bunch of miles in one of them, then buy a cheapish (revenue) ticket to a region you're interested in and use the miles to hop around. A lot of regions aren't cheap to hop around if you want business class. AA redemptions intra-Asia are really good and fairly easy to find, inside Australia or trans-Tasman as well. (though those shorter intra-Australia flights like the East Coast are far better ticketing with BA Avios than AA miles since BA is distance based) Intra-Middle East or Asia to Middle East is great with AA miles and you also have EY as a non-alliance partner for those. Intra-Europe rates are good and readily available, but I don't really say they are high value since the Eurobiz experience isn't great. AS has a lot of work to do on their OneWorld awards so it's hard to say how it'll eventually look but some awards on their current non-Alliance partners are really great and not terribly difficult to score with planning, only problem with crediting to AS is you need a lot of AS metal segments to earn status, you'd probably need to hop around the west coast a bit to maintain it, AA has no such segment requirement and if you can get to EXP status you'd be earning just as many miles on a DONEx as you would with AS (this assumes that BA and IB will continue crediting to AA as distance based on DONEx, which is also still unknown, otherwise you'd have to use AY or QR for all your long haul DONEx flights between Europe and North America.