I have a slightly different take on the value for a mile thing. For flying, I try to consolidate all of my mileage earning on either AA or DL. I have had good success getting reward tickets I want at the standard levels for both programs, with a little flexibility. I also use iDine to get extra AA miles, shop through their respecitve shopping portals and do just about anything else I can do to accrue these two programs miles.

I do not have the world's greates credit, thanks to the world's most psycho ex-wife, so I use an AS debit card through BofA for mileage earning there. They also offer a US card, but I figure that even living on the east coast, I would rather accrue AS miles than US miles.

For hotel or rental car partners, I ALWAYS use WN. They always offer promotions of some sort and offer a quicker path to secure a free ticket. I understand that they have a limited network of cities, but when renting a car from Hertz, if I can get quadruple credit (2 out of the 16 -- 1/8th -- needed for a free ticket) from Wn or about 400-500 miles from AA (call it 1/50th of what you need for a domestic coach ticket). Same thing double dipping at HHonors hotels. You can get 500 AA miles (1/50th) or 1/2 WN credit (1/32nd) at most HH hotels. The difference is even more staggering at Hampton Inns (100 AA miles vs 1/2 WN credit). I have earned a few free tickets on WN for very little actual flying.

Stevekoe