...without absolutely hemorrhaging miles (ala points.com).

Your best bet would be to do something that used the "orphan" miles in which every account(s) you decide you won't retain. I had a substantial amount of AA miles in my AAdvantage account but not enough for any tickets I wanted. Since I wasn't flying AA, I started banking things like hotels and car rentals toward AAdvantage miles till I had enough to do something with. Now I have like 1500 miles left that I'll top off every now and again to keep them active.

Just my 2¢.