First things first...I love this forum!!!

Having said that, I am a fairly new traveler. I don't have a status anywhere on anything. The only person who knows me by name is the girl who keeps my dog while I'm gone, and the guy at RDU FastPark who keeps asking me for my number. Hoping over the next few months to combine my growing love of travel with some work assignments (oh, and I am looking for a new job that requires me to travel more, if anyone has inside info).

My point balances are ones that 75% of you would heckle at. I have balances in (sorry, I haven't learned all the acronyms yet) DL (8K), United (3K), AirTran (2), Midwest (2K), and UA (5K). As you can see, my highest amount is with DL, mainly because they offer the cheapest and most regularly scheduled flights out of RIC/RDU/DCA. I also have my HHonors account (~19K) linked to DL. Also, I usually tie my car rental to DL as well.

I have been reading here a lot lately about the distaste and disgust with the SkyMiles program. I have never had any bad experiences with DL, just want to make sure they will benefit me in the long run. Should I stick it out, or should I try to focus on building a balance with another program? What can I do with the 8K in my SkyMiles account? I only fly occasionally, about twice every other month mainly to OMA and IAH, but will have way more hotel stays than RT flights.

I know FTers probably see 10 of these a week, but any insight would be appreciated.

Yes, your miles are low so don't let that tie you to any program. You can easily get more miles applying to credit card and other stuff. The problem with Delta is that they require more miles than any other airline for an award ticket. But again if you think they have the lowest prices and a regular schedule, that may trump anything.

Stick with the one that you fly the most...but keep all the others in case you fly them...it doesn't hurt you to have more than one affiliation.

In order for Skymiles to be effective, you have to have enough to use and use regularly, with 8K skymiles, you wont know if skymiles is a good program. All you know is you get the best price for the route you fly in the skymiles program, which is more important, at least to me. Maybe in the near future, when you travel more or collect more and get to use skymiles, you can judge for yourself.
I used to collect just skymiles, which is my highest FF program, but I now have over 200,000 miles each on all other major airlines program, for what I use skymiles for, it works well for me, but the program is not as good as others. So save any judgment on skymiles till you get to use it. It might work well for you and what you use it for.

Was that a typo? United and UA is the same airline, United Airlines. Did you mean to say US Airways for one of those two?

If you don't fly much and can't keep generating activities to all of your accounts, most will expire in 12- 24 months. Most of them are low enough that no savvy FTer will lose sleep over. So consider charity donation of your miles/points if you are going to lose them without expected activities anyway.

Which FFP to stick to depends on your goals. What is your use of miles? If only for domestic award tickets, I would say forget about Delta. You don't want to end up with miles you can't redeem after all the effort you put into.

If you can bump up your miles by getting credit card bonuses, you may turn some of your current miles to a redeemable level (25K for award tix or 12500 for one-way award on UA) and be done with it.

If you indeed had both UA and US miles, you should have credited all your miles into a major FFP since they are Star Alliance partners. When you fly, you should choose wisely to fly within the same alliance so you may credit all miles into one account.

For infrequent flyers, it's better to concentrate on one single program so you can achieve whatever goal you have in mind. Scattered miles in 5 different accounts get you no where.

I started with Delta many moons ago and did so because at the time they were a hub city close to me AND they had what was claimed to be the best rewards card with AMEX.

So for years I would charge business expenses, rack up miles and take a couple of domestic and maybe one international flight per year.

About 3 years ago I became Silver, and believe me I got the notice in the mail and said, "Wow, no s^!t, I guess I did fly a lot this year", as it was a complete surprise at the time.

Then came the NW buyout, so I would now be with Delta and they actually would have better options to Asia, nice!

So now, even as a lowly Silver (Plat by next year with the roll-overs) I get free bags, access to the good seats at booking and have received a good number of free upgrades.

So, I am happy right?, well what you read IS correct. Try to upgrade when it counts (26 hours to HKG for instance) and you're buying a ticket 3 to 4 times as expensive than if you travel coach. Try and find a 25,000 mile flight most of the time, good luck. Thinking about using miles for a business class ticket or two overseas. Might as well kiss 5 years of mileage earning (at my level) goodbye!! Not gonna do that.

I now have 600K miles and growing and I find myself shopping for another relationship (with an airline that is) because of the value proposition with Skymiles. I am thinking United as the ability to fly upfront to Asia is right now my primary concern.

Will I continue to fly DL domestic. You bet because I have the status and it does come with perks that infrequent flyers don't have. But are my eyes straying and looking for the right opportunity to jump, yes.

So why am I telling you the entire saga when your question was a simple (though not easy) one...


Well as my second post, I guess I thought this was a good place to begin 'getting involved' also, I can sum up my thought this way:

1. Shoot for the first level of status (Silver if Delta), without this 'you ain't no where'.

2. Sounds like you should be with DL if you like their flight availability. I am not that familiar with RDU as I've only been through (to High Point) once.

3. A lot of the Delta bashing (nothing meant to be disrespectful of Elites who do much more traveling than I) is from higher ups who see less additional value for flying A LOT as opposed to lower tier flyers like me (and maybe you too soon) who appreciate the separation from the casual non-elite.

4. If you plan to travel overseas, RUN away from DL as fast as you can.

Hope this helps.

Yes, this was a typo. I have 3K in United and 5K in US Air.

How do I do this...or can I do this at this point? I could totally switch to United, they have the same availability in my cities (of course, for about $50-$150 more per ticket). And I always get those 5% off certificates from them every so often, which hasn't proved to be a good buy yet because the 5% discount is what I would pay in gas to an alternate airport.

Basically you are telling me you could have accumulated 8K UA miles (equal amount to your Skymiles) but you didn't? You haven't been a good student at FT University, have you?

Better start late than never.

No, it's too late to do it now. Don't know about US but there's no way to get miles out from UA to another FFP.

The general rule of thumb is to present your major FFP number whenever flying within the same alliance, so all your miles get posted to the same FFP account. If you want to focus on UA from now on, always give your UA number to all Star Alliance Partners when you fly. Some alliance partners only give partial credits though. So better check with rules for each FFP w/r/t partner credits. Between UA and US, I think it's 1:1 full credit. (US flyers please chime in if I am not correct). If you are set for UA from now on, remember to change all your airline affiliation to UA (car rental, hotels, iDine...etc).

Giving you have more US miles than UA at this point, it may make more sense to keep building your US balance. Meaning when flying UA, only give them your US account.

Good luck!