I am finding it hard to earn status with any specific program because my travel is not focused on one geographical area: I live in hotels and travel between countries.
(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Most value from my points, spend points instead of cash
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
About once a month, about 25k miles per year, always business, always one way
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ?
Business but due to my flexibility I typically buy low cost last minute business tickets rather than pay full price. I'll know roughly when I want to fly (e.g: early May) and I'll look for the lowest cost ticket (with a good seat), averaging $2500 USD for a long haul ticket
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Airline most flown? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Flexible, no constraints, all out of pocket personal expenditure
(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often
No regular routes or airlines
(6) What is your home airport?
No home airport
(7) Do you have FFP status of any kind in an airline? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP?
No meaningful status. I earn around 100k avios per year from my credit card spend, I have 100k avios in my British Airways account, and earn around 1 million Marriott points per year (which can be converted to most airline programs at a 3:1 ratio (so if I spot a great deal with a specific program I can convert the points as I need them))
(8) Preferred Airlines
I like Qatar for flying between Europe and Asia which I do a couple of times a year. If I could get status that made it more cost effective / easier to use avios to pay for those flights, that would be valuable, as sometimes it seems the cost is reasonable (e.g: 70k) and other times the only option is to pay part avios part cash which has a very low redemption rate (I'm assuming/hoping status would make it easier to reliably get the 35k/leg tickets but maybe it's not relevant). If I can fly business from Manila to Frankfurt for 100k avios (or equivalent) and then business from London to Japan for 100k avios (or equivalent) I'd be very happy.
My current thinking is that oneworld is the right program for me because it has members globally, but I am not sure if it's possible to earn status given the geographical distribution of my flights. I've tried to focus on oneworld by booking partner flights through British Airways to earn oneworld status, but partner flights don't seem to be available much, so I end up going with the partner carriers directly and I'm now half way to entry level status with a few different oneworld members.
Thank you.
You can book directly with partner airlines, but still credit your flights to a different FFP. For example, you could book directly with QR, but enter your BA, AA, or IB frequent-flyer number for credit.
How much would you estimate that you spend annually on air travel? Some programs, like AA's AAdvantage, now credit redeemable mileage and Loyalty Points based on pre-tax airfare -- not distance flown -- for some partners, like BA and IB. For other partners, like QR, CX, and JL, AAdvantage still credits based on miles flown and booking code. In addition, hotel stays credited to AAdvantage also count towards achieving elite status, so you might be able to use your Marriott stays to help get elite status in the AAdvantage program. More details here:
https://www.aa.com/web/i18n/aadvanta...tel-stays.html
("Earn miles and Loyalty Points at hotels")
If you're more interested in collecting Avios than AAdvantage miles, then I would look into crediting your flights to Iberia Plus. See this "Inside Flyer" article for more information about that:
https://insideflyer.co.uk/2019/03/qa...f-iberia-plus/
("WHY QATAR AIRWAYS BUSINESS CLASS REGULARS MIGHT BE BETTER OFF WITH IBERIA PLUS")
I don't know whether attaining status in QR's frequent-flyer program would result in cheaper redemption rates for you on QR flights. I do know that achieving status in the AAdvantage program would not: redemption rates on partner carriers like QR are fixed price, and availability depends on what award seats QR chooses to make available to AA. It's possible that QR has dynamic award pricing for members of its own program, but I'm not certain about that.
As you may know, Avios earned in one FFP can be transferred to another Avios FFP, in case it is advantageous to redeem from a different FFP for a particular redemption.
Edited to add: And welcome to FlyerTalk!