Well until the Skyteam and "Wings" merger, It was four alliances. Personally I find being top tier in all alliances to be quite liberating and in a funny way it negates the value of top tier, at least from the competitive viewpoint of the airlines. I can pretty much fly who I want where I want, BA fits my flights to/fr the Uk which I do often as well as some Caribbean and S. American flying. DL covers much of my Transatlantic and US domestic travel. KL and LH get me around Europe and occasionally to Asia. I can then fly pretty much anyone else that I want and sweep them into my main accounts to top off status where needed. On top of these I probably have a free float of 50-75k a year that I can sweep towards the carrier that has the best deal in a given year (i.e. DL's threshold bonus for reaching certain MQM's, FD's carryover to next year, whatever).