I realize this isn't a strictly OnePass discussion, but it IS related in the sense that I have been primarily a CO flyer for a number of years now, and would much rather hear the opinions of folks who have similar experiences (and who I "know") than on some of the other forums. Many of the posters here have more credibility to my experience after reading for a few years and posting the last year...so advice is solicited...and if you want to make fun of me, that's fine too.

Development: New job that has 20-50% travel reqs. Travel is wherever the customer is, International included. Probably more domestic travel than Int'l, but it could vary. Most Int'l will be Asia/Europe. Int'l segments over 7 hours are paid for in J. Home base is SEA. Bookings are through Corp travel agent (AmEx).

Current Situation: I am OP Gold through my own dollars for the most part, with only the rare business trip prior to this new job. I have decent opportunity to acrue OP miles here. EVA and Korean to Asia, NW to Asia and Europe, and domestically Alaska to much of the west coast, but without upgrades, and possibly CO to some of the smaller European ports.

Possibilities: Taking a second program in either of the other two alliances, neither of which seems obviously stronger than the other from SEA. (Hence the post.)

OneWorld: AA to hubs and onwards (often at or near the top of the booking lists AmEx gives, no matter the destination) BA to LHR and onwards of course, which is appealing because of their J product.

Star: Asiana to Asia, SAS to Europe (wireless, for now!) US and AC to sundry specifics, and of course UA. UA has the most singular appeal of any airline here, for numerous reasons, E+, the multiple semi-nearby hubs (DEN and SFO) and the fact they mini-hub out of SEA.

The question is, with an irregular travel schedule, is it worth taking the second program on at all, or do I try and keep my miles inside of OP, where I will still probably go slightly insane trying to use my miles...but where a ton of my personal travel will still be directed. This is the definite drawback to SEA...it's not obvious who to go with here if you have/want Int'l travel.

It all depends if your company will either pay for a non-Q,I,S,X,T,W,L fare every time or if your corp. travel agent is able to get full EQMs if they don't. If either one is yes, then I'd definitely go for another elite program, unless it would prevent you from hitting Plat with CO, but with int'l J travel, that shouldn't be too hard. Hitting Plat on CO would be a very good thing as you can get EUAed on reward travel, get top priority for EUAs (which, as you might have gathered, are pretty good, excepting SEA-EWR NS), have no change fees for reward travel, get ST+ status (although the main perk of that, lounge access for int'l Y, wouldn't be that useful to you), etc.

As for another program, it would seem to me that UA is your best bet, due to the reasons you listed, in addition to the fact that SQ (Singapore) and TG (Thai) have fantastic J products to Asia, particularly SQ. Of course, OW has Cathay Pacific and Qantas, but I think you'll have more options with SA. It really comes down to having multiple alliance status, which, if you're not sure where your going, is a very good thing to have.

Since neither UA nor AA do automatic upgrades, that strongly favors UA for E+. UA has 2 west coast hubs, AA has 0 (LAX is only a focus city). AA uses ORD. UA uses DEN. Between the two, I'd go with UA. Unless of course you'll be doing a lot of travel to TX. Even then, UA has a lot more going for it.

Once you decide, I would do a status match with them and enjoy status before flying. You might also want to consider AS if you do a lot of intra-coastal flying, as they have auto upgrades and a pretty nice product. And, of course, they're the dominant carrier at SEA and a CO partner, so you can bank AS flights to your OP acct. and you can get exit row seating on AS opped flights. Hope I've helped.

Personally, with the Asia travel and the corp. travel agent mandate, I would dump CO, comp to UA, and not look back.

CO is not a friendly airline towards travel agent users. Fortunately, I don't have that constraint, so I'm able to book my own stuff.

You have two good options in my opinion:

1) Remain with CO and find the best second choice Star Alliance partner, I'd recommend Air Canada for their lower elite threshold and better product than UA or US.

2) Switch to AS and have a second choice Star Alliance partner. AS has most non-stop flights from SEA, along with CO, DL, NW, AA, BA, QS, etc. as FFP partners and unlimited elite upgrades coupled with the third best domestic coach product after Co and WN. The question to ask yourself is how much time you want to spend changing planes.

CO is the best for your Europe Travel.They fly everywhere. Terrible for Asia, since you'd have to fly east to go west, unless you flew 2 zillion hops through LAX,HNL,GUM...
You could do paid Korean air (very nice) or Northworst (okay) and keep your skyteam status up top.

You CANNOT use AA. They fly to only TWO asia destinations and 6 1/2 in europe. You CANNOT earn AA miles on BA transatlantic. No upgrades on other one world carriers metal, without PAYING or using miles. AA is nothing but a code share gimmick.

Star alliance would probably be good for Asia since you have UAL and Air Canada close by. Plus singapore. But, I think I'd go for Platinum on skyteam and take NWA west CO east.

I am in a position close to yours. I have been a CO flyer forever (NJ will do that to you) and have always had a second program. A few years ago, I went with UA for my second program, got comp'ed to PremEx and have enjoyed having the pair. I am able to fly enough to keep Plat on CO and 1K on United, and that has served me well.

One thing I have noticed is that I have a lot more choices for award tickets by having miles in two programs. A couple of times I was shut out of my preferred dates on SkyTeam, and *A came through.

I also have had problems with mileage accrual on SkyTeam, due to some of CO's rules (especially with lower fares and excluded fare classes like Q on KE). I have loved UA, and especially the international upgrades. The combination has worked out very well for me.

The one area where our situations differ is your statement about your company buying J for long trips. To me, the biggest benefits of UA have been the E+ seats and the systemwide upgrades. It sounds like you may not have as much need of systemwides.

Personally, the added flexibility of having two programs works for me, and I encourage it often. However, if you think you can only make the highest level on one program, and CO has been working for you (and you normally buy fares that qualify for EQM), then I would suggest sticking with that.

Channa I would dump CO except that the two destinations I care most about for using my own miles are EWR and TLV...for those purposes, UA stinks bad (from SEA)...so CO will always be in the back of my mind when it comes to miles, even when they're hard to use, because those are the places I'm most likely to need to use them in an emergency. (God forbid)

Cigar: I was wondering about that, but hadn't researched it yet. No AA miles on BA is a joke, you're right...that rules OneWorld and AA right out the door. That brings me back to adding UA/Star or sticking with SkyTeam. Seeing as how I am looking at no EQM penalties on my Int'l travel, the corp agent stuff isn't a big turnoff there. I guess the question at that point is then: Is building up another program worthwhile for my domestic travel needs and/or having reward options. That's tough. I'm uncertain as to how flexibile the corp travel options are in many situations either.

Sounds like I'll just have to play this by ear as I move through the job the first few months...I suspected that would be the answer, but I wanted to ask in case there were some facts or keen insights I might be missing. Thanks everyone.

Remember...although BA does not give miles to members of the AA FFP, they do give miles to AS FP members. Also if you have a significant other, the WN Companion Pass is hard to beat...

I've got to disagree. The OP has stated that longhaul travel will be in J in any case. Unless the OP has a current ATP and 777 type rating, there's no CO upgrade in their future!

AA codeshares with JL ex-NRT extensively, you might call it a gimmick, I call it a chance to fly superior airlines And if the OP can get to YVR, They can leverage CX to Asia and BA to Heathrow. Short hops down the coast also open up the JL and CX flights to Asia (BR is more limited unless TPE is your destination, in which case I believe there's an SEA-TPE nonstop which is nice).

AA also provides much easier mileage redemption IME, not to mention the EXP desk (fantastic!) and 8 eVIPs for upgrades on AA metal, nice for upgrading to F (where's F on CO?). And you still get the domestic upgrades.

Now, if CO is directly serving your European destination and you are travelling enough that you want to knock off a leg, then that's an advantage to CO. But if you are going to end up using KL's network ex-AMS, then I think you'd be better served by using BA's network ex-LHR. At least BA still offers business class on their European network, as compared to the "nicer service in coach seating" that KL calls "Europe Select."

Oh, did I mention that at least if you have time to kill at ORD or LAX on the international trips (and soon to be JFK) you'll also have the Flagship Lounge (which is, whilst not CX's lounge in HKG, is far beyond any regular KL/CO/NW lounge).

And if you can take the short trip down the coast to LAX, you've got that ability to upgrade to F LAX-LHR again...

Steve

Ditto for what Cigar and Channa said.

Have you considered going with NH or SQ and banking the miles back to UA while continuingf to CO for domestic and Europe flights (which is where the excel IMHO).

Also there's some good posting by Heathrowguy a few months back detailing why the AA/BA FF mileage restriction exists. Quite interesting if you're into that kind of thing... which I am

Um... NO.

Systemwides are useless when you can't redeem them. That's the problem with the lack of AA metal. TWO count them... TWO whole cities you can use your systemwides to in Asia, and 6 1/2... in Europe. That is Pathetic! Sure you can fly Cathay etc. But not with the system wide. And the flagship lounge on it's best day can't touch a good Presidents club. A P club has FREE alchol, Free internet and are nice new and modern. Flagship lounges are not even in the same hemisphere. I am AA EXP PLAT... I fly them almost three times a week. And they are garbage. Only advantage AA has is award redeption, and that won't help the original poster.

And AA has very good award redemption. The problem AA has for me is that I have to transit through ORD (winter storms, thunderstorms) and CMH to points east is weak. But CO/NWA/D/AF gives excellent Euro coverage (which is where I usually travel).

But Asia? *Alliance dominates with 1W coming in second (JAL coming on board will help). Skyteam lags severely with the exception of NW - I saw someone claim that they prefer NW to Cathay and Singapore EVEN IN BUSINESS CLASS! Aside from a few outliers, the GRAY LADY (United) and her friends dominate.

But my opinion is jaded. I actually like COPA, EVA and CO Micronesia! I am not one of the people who would actually fly to Australia on COMICRO, but I have thought about it.

And I just buy a BIZCLASS seat if flying to LAX or SFO. At 6'4, why bother to gamble when the odds are so low?

CO does not EUA on domestic coach reward travel. NW does.

This depends on where you're starting from.

CO is fantastic for EWR-based folks who want to travel to Europe. You can go most places non-stop.

For a West Coaster, transitting IAH or EWR to get to Europe is not as appealing, especially if there are non-stops (e.g., LHR, CDG, AMS, FRA, MUC, ZRH, etc.). Even worse if you're paying for business class, as connecting in the U.S. reduces your international flight time, and adds domestic flight time.

Most European destination are only 1-2 hours of the European hubs. I would much rather fly SFO-CDG-TXL in business, for example, than SFO-EWR-TXL.

Cigarman, I know you travel a lot...but I think somewhere you've missed something.

First off, in the comparison, since the OP would already be flying in J, AA offers the ability to upgrade to F to 2 (actually 3) destinations in Asia and "6 1/2" in Europe. CO offers F to zero, zip, nada, none of their destinations. In other words, for the OP, there's no upgrade opportunity on CO.

Second of all, the eVIPs can also be useful for personal travel. My wife and I have used mine to upgrade from inexpensive coach fares to business on at least a significant portion (domestic and over the ocean) of the flight. On CO, that upgrade would have cost, what -- the coach fare, PLUS $900, PLUS miles. Not to mention the fact that CO won't clear upgrades at the gate -- so even with empty seats up front you might be sitting in the back.

Now you might say that you would always use miles for personal travel, but sometimes you just *have* to be somewhere at a specific date, so it's a lot easier to buy the cheap coach fare and waitlist for the upgrade so you KNOW you'll be there.

And on the Coupon Connection, you can easily find people willing to trade 30,000 miles per eVIP -- so I think if you wanted to find someone who would trade, say, 2 business class awards (which are a LOT easier to find on AA) for 6 eVIPs for your vacation, you could do that easily. And many people on flyertalk DO value the ability to redeem miles much easier than one can with CO.

And now let's go to the topic of the Flagship Lounges. You may be EXP, but based on your description, clearly, you've not been in an FL. Unlike the Admiral's Club, the FL has not only free self service drinks and alcohol (meaning you don't have to tip anyone like in a PC) but it's got significant food. Food as in shrimp, cheese (and "cut your own from this hunk" not little preprocessed hunks of "cheese food"), various hot foods (such as egg rolls, dim sum or even sushi at times) to boot. Oh, and desserts as well. Again, as I said, it's not CX's lounge in HKG, or MH's in KUL, but it's far above any regular PC or Admiral's Club.

Steve