I like Oneworld over the Star Alliance based on the number of miles needed for redemption in general. And within OO, I like AA's award mile redemption. It seems to me that they require a little less mile than most other's within their alliance and the Star alliance. What are everyone else's thoughts?

We need to know where you based, which places you redeem to, class of service you prefer, what you expect out of a FFP (i.e. upgrades on paid Y tickets, C or Y awards, elite status recognition).

But in general Star has more members, while the main partner of AA charges YQ (BA). AA charges less miles for some places, while UA charges less for others.

Do not use DL, it is a living nightmare when it comes to redeeming miles.

True.. i'm based in Sf and travel to Asia often. I like Singapore as part of the star alliance but UA increased their redemption milage to asia as of June 15 I think. So economy costs somethign like 65k, J is like 120k and F is like 140k. I guess it's not a bad deal between J and F. Whereas AA on CX costs 50k for Y, 100k for J and 135k for F if I recall correctly. I heard of the 150k around the world in J class with AA, but the best info I could find on AA website is that it's only up to a certain amount of miles. Hm.. might not be a bad deal anyway.

Just go with AA and OW.

Redeeming on SQ for premium cabins is pretty much impossible for non-SQ Krisflyer members. There have been cases where SEN/HON status members of M&M have been able to redeem in SQ J/F...

If you want better premium cabin awards and more airlines, *A is the way to go. You have the new LH F and great choices in OZ F/C, NH F/C, LX F/C, SQ F/C, TG F/C, etc.

Even when redeeming ST partner flights?

AF & KL have avg availability, not sure about KE. Plus one needs DL to get to a partner gateway

There are places in the world only one alliance can get you. For example, cities north of Bergen in Norway, such as Alesund (the closest airport if you want to visit Geirangerfjord), are served only by SAS (in terms of airlines in alliances) and thus only Star. I would presume there are other places that are OneWorld only or SkyTeam only, but I don't know of specific examples offhand.

Then there's the question of directness of flights. I'm based in LAX, and OW can get me nonstops to LHR and MAD, but if i'd like a nonstop to AMS or CDG I need to use SkyTeam and if I"d like a nonstop to ZRH or FRA I need to use Star. Obviously, if I don't care enough about whether I go nonstop then that may not be a factor.

At any rate, I collect more with my favorite aliance, but I collect miles in all 3 alliances. My favoirte alliance I collect on flights and other stuff; the other two alliances I don't tend to do paid flights, I only earn from partner activity. (But enough of that to gradually build up enough miles for an int'l premium cabin trip in each of those alliances now and then.)