Dear all:

I'm brand new to FT (though I'm something of a regular on rec.travel.air), but I've done a bit of reading through old threads and messages (well, more than a bit...). A wealth of information--overwhelming.

Anyhow, I'm in a bit of a quandary re. choosing the right FF program, and thought I'd ask for advice as I can't see any old threads that deal with my situation. I've moved around quite a bit the last few years, and picked up miles on all sorts of programs.

I'm a frequent-ish flier, probably about 35-40,000 miles per year, with the possibility that might go up in the next year or so. So enough to be lower tier elite and probably not enough to be mid-tier elite on any FF programme. Right now I'm silver elite on CO (and have been for a couple of years), have been elite on KL (when I lived near ABZ), but will probably be elite with UA next year (2,000 short right now). I also have a bunch of miles with US, AA, and BA. I've just joined QF's programme, ahead of a OneWorld trip to NZ and Chile/Argentina this Xmas. So I'm all spread out, but want a programme I can be consistently elite on, to get the elite bonuses...

(CO's silver elite bonus of 50% extra is good, of course.)

I'm based in MAN (though flights from LON don't phase me). I generally fly to the US, Latin America, and NZ. Hence CO's less and less use to me as they seem to have scaled back in Latin America, and as they don't fly to Australasia. UA's good for Australasia, but not good for Latin America. BA/AA never give me miles for the rock-bottom fares I normally travel on. (Hence the switch to QF with their new rules on UK residents earning on such fares.) I'm not so sure about other airlines/alliances.

I don't use miles to upgrade; I use them for flights. I find the best use for miles is for flights to Latin America (here CO's great--when they flew to Santiago, that was only 35,000 miles from the continental US), and not much use for flights to Australasia. However, I've also used them for flights to the US.

I guess I'm basically thinking that the three most obvious programs are UA, CO, and QF, but I could be wrong...

Anyone got any advice? And apologies for waffling on.

Jon