I'm not sure if this is the right place to reply, but if not, the mod will move it to another board.

IMO, airlines are devaluing the miles themselves more and more. It's almost impossible to get a Delta award for less then 50,000 miles. So unless you are at least a gold elite, meaning you are travelling 50K miles a year and getting a 100% bonus, you are going to get only modest actual flight rewards.

As you observed, SWA's program is best if you are making short hops. SWA I think also does not have blackouts. So if you go to LA often, it can be worthwhile to fly SWA. 8 round-trips to LA earn you a ticket that you can use to go to Columbus. By comparison, you'd have to make that trip 50 times on Delta (if they fly that route).

The main thing is to make sure you make elite. A lot of members of this board manage their miles carefully to make sure they go over 25K, 50K, etc. on a given airline. This year I had about 7K elite qualifying miles on Northwest before I changed jobs. NW does not go to where I mostly go on business now, but I am posting all my Delta and Continental miles to NW, to make silver elite. I'd suggest you use the trip to Guam to make sure you at least make silver on one carrier.

I also think it's helpful to have miles on multiple carriers, if possible. When you go to redeem, sometimes you might find better availabilty on one carrier than another.

Ultimately the system works most to the benefit of the most frequent fliers. Someone flying 100K miles a year is going to get much more than 4 times the benefits of someone flying 25K. I'm not saying that's unfair or a bad thing. I feel kind of bad for flyers who fly 100K+ miles a year. For every time I'm delayed or spend the night in a city I didn't plan on, it happens to them four times. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to maximize your benefits from the travel you do. I remember a few years ago checking in for a red-eye home from Vegas. I nestled into my luxurious center coach seat and started to wonder if I could even use my laptop. Then I heard my name called and was asked to come to the front of the cabin. This could only mean one of three things: A close relative had died, they had found contraband in my luggage, or a first-class passenger hadn't checked in and I was next on the free upgrade list. Since Mom was carrying my drugs on a different flight, I correctly guessed that it was the third! Nice little surprises like that make a difference.