Best strategy for secondary mileage program??

I've started travelling a lot in the past few months with a job change and as a result I'm trying to familiarize myself with levels, MR's, a ton of terminology etc.

My primary plan is with Alaska Airlines since I fly their destinations frequently (and their large NW presence) but I'm curious about a secondary mileage plan and whether the value is with a partner of Alaska (such as Delta or AA) or with another carrier entirely (like United)? Or do you stick with the one plan and not worry about the others?

I would like to travel internationally this next year while completing a few MR's and wondering what the prevailing opinion/advice is?

Thanks!

You've arrived here just after two major devaluations, at UA and DL. Right now, there are many people who are moving TO the Alaska program.

For now, you may be best crediting your flights from all of Alaska's partners right over to your AS account and building elite status there.

There are a few reasons to consider adding a second plan:

(1) If you find you need to travel to places that can't be credited to AS. Like if you find you must fly United - in that case, you'll want to credit those miles somewhere. Usually your best bet is whichever domestic FF program covers the alliance that airline is in. (So, if it's anything in Star Alliance, credit it over to United.)

(2) If you need a redemption not possible with AS miles. Others more knowledgable could discuss that. There are also some specialized awards out there, like the AA "oneworld/Explorer" award, which allow for some exotic routing.

(3) To hedge your bets, in case availability is bad when you need to redeem. For example, one very popular plan is to credit flying miles to one particular program, then to focus on credit card signups for a different program. Then you have many different options when you need to redeem.

P.S. It is ok to fly internationally on a short vacation that is not an MR. There is no reason you can't stay at the destination for a few days.

Thank you kindly for the advice--it's nice to know it appears I'm on the right track. Now to try one of those HNL-IST routes.... :P

Since, at least for now, DL and AA flights can be credited to AS and, in fact, AS elites are eligible for low priority upgrades on DL, there probably isn't much rationale to make AA or DL your secondary program unless you fly enough to be able to get top tier status on one of these carriers. So I would think about whether a secondary program in *A would make sense. IMO the basic choices would be UA for Y+, domestic upgrades, and SWUs (if you can get high enough status), plus access to *A award tickets with UA miles, or--especially if you can't get the 50,000 status miles and $5000 spend required for Gold on UA but nevertheless want some *A benefits--credit enough to Aegean to get their *Gold at 19,000 status miles, which would allow you access to UA lounges even on domestic *A itineraries but not give you Y+ or upgrades on UA, etc.

I'm fully vested in AS. All leisure travel so I only travel when I want to, and fly carriers I want (AS or its partners)- and this covers a wide section of the world. Its worked well so far- but with all the changes developing... kinda crazy.