Newbie here… I feel like I’ve done a lot of flying over the years (not as much as most of you I’m sure) but b/c I’m always flying on different carriers, I don’t know how to maximize all my traveling. I’m confused with how these frequent flier programs work, especially with these alliances. I have a *A account, but I also have accounts with US Airways and United. Whenever I fly on a *A carrier, do I add those miles to that particular carrier, or can I opt to have those miles be counted under a different *A carrier? I recently flew Turkish Airlines and Aegean… do I need to open separate accounts with those individual carrier’s programs, or do I add those miles to *A? What does it mean if I add the miles to *A, or in other words, does it not get accounted for within the individual carrier’s program? Is there a way to add them to either US Airways or United? I’ve read that it is good to stick with the carrier I use most. So let’s say I use United the most, do I add those Aegean and Turkish Air miles to United (if that’s even possible?) If so, how do I do this?

If it helps...
(1) What is your home airport? DCA or IAD
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Y
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? <25K
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? none
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Good award redemption rates, hopefully some free flights
(6) Which routes do you fly most often US Domestic, typically between DCA/IAD to SMF/SFO or SNA/LAX/LGB; hoping for one transatlantic per year in the future
(7) Preferred Airlines – don’t really have one, I just fly whatever has been cheapest at the time of purchase; I have 50K with Delta Skymiles and 18K with United
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Pleasure

If you are only flying <25K miles a year, you will not get status. Status means being an "elite" frequent flyer, entitling you to certain perks like free checked bags, upgrades, reduced or waived fees, etc. (Even as the lowest level of elite, your benefits would be limited.)

It is difficult to impossible to transfer points between programs, so having miles on a program without having enough for an award is almost useless. You should choose an airline from each alliance - say United from Star Alliance, Delta from Skyteam, and American from Oneworld - and see that all your points are accrued on that airline. (Do pay attention to making sure your miles don't expire; there are many tricks to keep that from happening.)

For most non-frequent fliers, most of the points you will get will be from credit card signup bonuses, or credit card spending. Explore FT to find the best offers available as to bonus, spending requirement (if any) to get the bonus, and annual fee (usually but not always waived the first year).

Delta has a well-earned reputation for being difficult to redeem miles on. While nominally you can get a domestic round trip for 25K miles, in practice it will very often take 40K.

When people speak of *A, what they mean is that if you achieve certain status with one Star Alliance carrier, you will get benefits on others. Usually it requires Gold status (50K miles flown a year) and even then it will mostly get you things like priority boarding, free bag check, and perhaps lounge access, it won't usually get you upgrades on partner airlines.

So just always credit your miles to one of the three carriers noted above, and if redemption is your goal, prefer Star Alliance or Oneworld to Skyteam.

To add to the previous poster, I would develop some very specific goals in terms of travelling - choose a time/region you would like to travel to in the future, then develop a plan to get there on miles. There are multiple card sign-ups out there for a number of carriers, so once you have a goal in mind it makes it easier/not so overwhelming.

great, thanks for the helpful info!

So now that I've already flown with Turkish and Aegean last month (and probably don't plan on flying with them again for a very long time), what should I do with those miles? I have not yet added them to anything. Should I just have those miles added to my *A account? It wouldn't be necessary to open up an individual program for Turkish and Aegean, right?

You can have them added to your United account which I prefer over US Airways. If you have your flight details (eticket number, dates, flight numbers, etc), you can call United and they can apply credit to your account.

Depending on what flight bucket they booked into will help determine how many miles you get. Good call on starting to collect miles

I think this is great advice. I looked at this a few years ago when I decided to switch carriers knowing I would start traveling more for work. I had always flown SW, but where can I go using those points?

SW changed their program. The amount of points required depends on the cost of the ticket. You can fly anywhere SW and Air Tran flies. You can also fly to other places on flights operated by other airlines, however the rate you get on points is very poor from what I have heard.