I am relatively new to thinking about a FF strategy, but this forum is clearly the place to get advice. I have been reading the forums looking at various 'what is the best FF program for *' threads and have developed some general intuitions about the tradeoffs involved with choosing various programs depending on what kind of flying I'll be doing. However, I've also noted that one of the most often posted responses is a request for more details on the poster's flying profile. So, with apologies for the long post, here is my projected flying profile for the next few years and the particular situation that has forced me to think more seriously about developing a FF strategy. (If this flying pattern looks like one that's been covered previously, please just point me to the thread.)

I am about to move from the northeast of the US to Lisbon, Portugal. I have flown a few domestic RTs each year for the last couple of years but haven't accrued many miles (or looked into FF CCs or other ways to accrue benefits). I am now going to be making at least 4-6 TATL RTs each year to various places in the USA, often with stopovers at NYC or BOS. As I will be LIS based, I have direct flights to those locations via *A (TP/CO) and indirects via many carriers/alliances. I will also probably be making one asia trip and/or one other long trip a year either of which might involve a TPAC RT or RTW ticket. Unfortunately, almost all of my flying will be Y class or below. I will have more flexibility in adding miles/segments to my trips than in getting upgrades to J/I class tickets (or even full Y rather than M/H or below). I assume my domestic EU flights will be on discount carriers unless the tradeoff of flying a major for the benefit accrual outweighs the extra costs.

My current dilemma is that I lost a TATL credit when I tried to use an AA FF # on a BA flight. I didn't realize that the credit didn't go through until after the grace period for getting the BA flight credited to a BA account. Lesson learned, I now have a TATL CO flight and a TPAC multi-segment trip that includes AA, CX, MU/FM and PR that I need to credit ASAP. I held off crediting the miles to my exiting FF # after I started to read these forums while planning this travel. I realized that I needed to think more carefully about my FF strategy.

I currently have accounts with AA (0mi), BA (0mi), DL SM (14k mi) and UA MP (5kmi). I am primarily interested in upgrade access. As I mentioned above, it will probably be easier for me to get more miles/segments added to tickets than be provided directly with higher class tickets so I need to worry about programs that don't credit cattle class miles. After the ability to get upgrades, I'd value free tickets and then lounge access as benefits. Based on reading the forums I have been considering moving my OW FF program from AA to either CX, IB or JL to avoid the problems with getting credit on TATL between BA/AA. The only argument I think I've seen for AA is lifetime benefits which I don't think will matter to me anytime soon... I also think I read that JL isn't friendly to Y-class and below. Any other OW programs I should consider? I don't know what the current opinions are about the likely results of the UA/CO merger, but I would consider leaving UA MP for CA Aeroplan, LH, SQ, TP if one of those FF programs were more flexible or better for my flying pattern. Finally, is it worth moving from DL SM to either KL or AF now that I will be based in the EU?

The other big consideration for me is choosing airlines that will actually be better to fly Y-class (especially TATL and TPAC). My recent experience with CX was great and my experience with CO is very positive compared to other US carriers. However, I don't know if some of the other asian or EU carriers would be good alternatives to use given my flying patterns. For *A, I don't particularly like flying Y-class on UA but it seems not bad on CO and I end up flying AC about once a year which is ok. BA seems better than AA on TATL, but I may be biased because they upgraded me to economy plus on the return leg. I lack of experience with most other non-US carriers.

Finally, once I pick the best FF program(s) for me, I assume I'll consider finding a matching CC for the best program. It's seems that the vast majority of the FF CCs are really best suited for business travel or where you can churn lots of cash through them. Any cattle class travelers out there have advice?

Thanks in advance for any advice and feedback.