You can get as involved in this whole game as you want to. At some point it's diminishing returns because it takes so much time and you're really not getting too much back for that time.

Remember to follow the golden rules:

1) Anytime you are doing something travel related sign up for the rewards program (hotel, airlines, car rentals) and register your purchases as you make them. These add up over time. For many years I never even registered for FFP's. I wasn't traveling that much but probably flew ten times internationally in a decade. That still would have been probably 80,000 miles if I had just bothered to copy/paste a number into a form.

2) As much as possible try to focus on just a few programs that fit your flying/stay schedule.

3) If you are the one doing the purchasing make a reasonable choice to get a lot of value off of credit cards. For example, the Amex Personal Rewards Gold gives 3 points per dollar on airfare purchases, and these transfer to a variety of partners directly as miles/points.

4) Take advantage of lucrative promotional offers like credit card sign up bonuses or bonus miles/points for hotel stays. You can do as much or as little of this as you want. But anyone with good credit can very easily make a 100,000-200,000 miles a year by just doing a signup on a single good card once every quarter. If you're a single person just wanting to get away once a year on vacation this is enough to give you business class to wherever you want once per year, provided you concentrate on a single program. If you're trying to accrue points for an entire family of course you have your work cut out for you.

You can get both the USAir card (from Barclays Bank) and the Starwood Amex. Starpoints transfer to USAir and many others. You only have to use the USAir card once to get the 40000 miles and other perks. Then you can put most of your spending on the Starwood card.

You want a toe? I can get you a toe by 3 o'clock. There are ways, Dude. You don't wanna know about it, believe me.

I would learn the value of points before you sign up for anything. Your credit score can only take you so far in some of these scenarios.

For instance I have found that United/Continental have not much that I can appreciate. The reward redemptions tend to be more costly in nearly every scenario for me compared to AA. Delta is also more expensive in regards to mile redemption, an every flight seems to have like $60 in fees and taxes vs. $10 for AA.

Hotel points can be absolutely pathetic in terms of value. IHG has the biggest # of properties I think. They are over saturated in some markets but quite often they have something near your destinations MAJOR CITY. Versus SPG who has a more extensive line-up of resort properties in locations where IHG doesn't care to compete much.

So before you go wild I would just pick some goals like someone said, where do you want to go, what hotels are there, and what airlines get you there.

I would hate to have a bunch of Southwest miles and want to go to say Europe

I am very happy with my AA/IHG cards and redemptions, to the point where I want to keep both cards and maybe even get more feature packed cards of theirs. While my 57k UA miles fall short of taking me so many locations.

When I say differences I mean big differences

40k r/t USA - Narita or USA - Europe with AA vs. 60-80-100k+ with UA/CO/Delta

I seriously don't know why anyone accumulates miles with anyone but AA (at the moment i am in love with them)

I'm not DL fan, but domestic DL awards also have the same $10 fee. I believe it's a tax paid to the U.S. government, not a fee paid to the airline. As we get into international itineraries, things start to diverge...and it can get a bit more difficult to figure out what are really taxes and what are fees.

I too have generally been happy with AA in that respect. Total tax/fee costs for int'l awards seem reasonable.

Oh, but they can also be AWESOME if you know how to use 'em. I think the OP's challenge is that it sounds like he won't be racking full-value "regular" hotel stays on the DC business travel, making it difficult to reach the high point totals needed to really leverage programs like Marriott or HHonors. Starwood is better at low point totals. IHG is probably okay too although I don't know quite as much about it. I have about 150k IHG left from the Crack the Case that I'll probably just hold for Manhattan stays where everything is $400/nt., making the points worth around a penny each.

Those are off-peak award levels on AA. During most of the year, I believe they're 60k just like UA.

I like pairing UA and AA because both offer one-ways. I'm rebuilding US now because the Grand Slam is 150,000-ish very easy miles. (This counts miles earned on the hits plus the GS bonuses.) In general, Star Alliance has more total options ex-USA. That's a good reason to build mileage somewhere on *A. AA is a fine program (for now) - that's by itself a good reason to build with them. Having both has come in handy for me over the years. Domestically, having a decent stash of WN has also been helpful...again because of the one-way options and all of the West Coast nonstops from MCI.

Besides, the OP doesn't really have an option of building on AA if his primary route is MCI-WAS. I was an AA Plat when I began my work in Arlington and learned after ONE week that MCI-ORD-DCA was *not* feasible long-term. I loved AA Plat at the time - there wasn't an EXP level, Plat Service Centers in major airports, semi-common op-UG's, periodic mailed Admiral's Club comp passes, etc.

But nonstops trump all when you're flying weekly...fortunately my firm's travel agent was able to hook up a Gold Preferred match on US. I was generally happy with them but not as happy as I would have been if AA flew MCI-DCA.