Thanks for helping out! This is my first day on flyertalk and my first post.

Anyways, I found this site trying to research which FFP to join and feel pretty lost. Can anyone give me some suggestions? Here is my profile:

1) Location: based in Singapore for the next 3 years. After that, either Europe or (most likely) back to the US.

2) Amt of travel: 3 trips a year. Once each to Australia, Europe or the US. (Chicago/New York/LA).

3) Y travel.

4) I am confused about alliances vs. partnerships. For example, Emirates has BA, Delta, AA, SA etc as partners (earn/redeem miles) for cheaper rates (it seems on first glance) than star or oneworld. For Y travellers, what is then the difference? (I don't really care about lounge use...)

5) Just as an example, I'll be travelling to Paris in July (want to get an FFP before this) and have the following choices:
Srilankan (Emirates) (S$800 rt), MAS (none for this class of tix?) (S$890 rt), Thai (star)(S$950 rt). Oneworld (QF/BA) is S$1,300)! Is it really worth paying consistantly more in order to travel on 'your ffp' airline? Europe is, what...approx. 13,000 miles, so I'll need 3.5 trips to get to 50K miles and earn a freebie trip to for example Australia, which currently costs S$700. Therefore, shouldn't one trip only have about a S$200 premuim?

6) Of course, extra options such as credit cards etc would be useful also.

7) My favorite airlines (Y) to date are: EK, AF, MH and AA

Thanks again for getting me straightened out on this one..


J