Hi all,
I'm just starting to travel for business and I'm overwhelmed trying to make sense of all the programs out there and figure out what is best for me.
I'm based in Charlotte, NC and my travel will be split between various destinations in the U.S. and Europe.

I just returned from my first trip, which was to Turin, Italy. I flew Lufthansa because it was the most convenient, so I signed up for their Miles and More program, but I was disappointed to find out that based on the ticket class, I only earned half a mile for each mile actually flown. Approx 10k miles flown and only earned 5k miles.

I used the mileage calculator for United, and it showed that I would have earned the full 10k miles, no matter what class of ticket was booked.

So any advice on which programs I should focus on and which airlines I should fly to try to get the best value out of my travel would be appreciated.

My goals would be:
Earn as many miles as possible in a program with a good availability of award flights.
Earn status as quickly as I can in a program with a good chance for upgrades.

I would expect to use the award miles for travel to both US and European destinations.

Thanks

CLT? Without knowing exactly where you are flying, I would reccomend you take a close look at US. Check out their Trial Preferred program, which gives you immediate elite benefits, to include domestic upgrades. Once they merge with AA you will have access to even more airports.

Pop over to the US section and read about first though, there are some good tips on maximizing the program at minimal cost.

How often are you going to be flying to Europe, and what places in Europe are you generally going to be visiting? AA's AAdvantage program's a good one (I'm a member, and really like it), but unfortunately the Oneworld Alliance doesn't have as widespread a network in Europe as what Star Alliance offers; that might be a factor which would push you toward United's program.

Why not United if you are on star alliance routes.

US is merging with AA ... so not sure if its worth claiming on the on *a route.

You can also look at Turkish, another *A member known to have more lenient star silver and gold qualification needs.

If you are looking to redeem on domestic US travel, then definitely United is better than US (one way awards are allowed).

True, but this will probably become moot after US merges with AA. No one knows for certain, of course, but the current expectations are that following the US-AA merger the new frequent flyer program will likely be similar to the current AAdvantage program, which (like United) allows one-way awards.

And on the subject of Star Alliance members, doesn't Aegean Airlines also have pretty lenient requirements for Elite levels?

Going with United's probably the simplest first step, though, especially for ease of booking domestic awards. The OP can always join a second Star Alliance frequent flyer program later if he wants to.

I'm a consultant for a software company and all of my travel will be to new customers, so I have no way to predict where they will be, other than knowing that my group handles Europe and North America. It just depends on which customers we acquire and which projects I get assigned to. For projects in Europe, it may be once a month for up to 6 months or longer. For projects in the US, it could be two or three roundtrips per month.

As far as redemption, I don't have any set plans other than my desire to use award miles for family vacations, either to the west coast of the U.S. or to Europe or the Caribbean.

I suggest that you sign up for both UA and AA. UA and its partners offer good flights to Europe, and AA will have a large presence in Charlotte after the merger with US. In the meantime, you can apply miles from US flights to the UA program. Try, however, to concentrate your miles on one airline as much as possible.

Sign up for all the major US programs i.e. UA, AA, DL, WN. Select your top 2 and try to fly them as much as possible. Do the same with hotels. I am a consultant as well and a bit more travel than yours. I usually end up buying at the last minute and it comes down to who has the cheapest flights with a few $ +/-(within ~$100 for economy and ~$500 for international business).
For hotels, it comes down to your choice and hotel locations. I would say select a main hotel chain and 2 backup hotel chains.

Do you have much of an idea of where you'll be going? It's tough out of CLT, because US is dominant while United flies one direct route to ORD. The rest are codeshares that they're probably going to lose when US/AA merge and leave *A.

So look at it this way - can Oneworld get you to where you need to go? If so, continue to fly *A now and credit to US. That way you'll get to enjoy the elite benefits when you fly US, as it's pretty hard to go anywhere on another carrier out of CLT.

Another option is to go with United or Aeroplan, knowing you won't be flying either carrier much out of CLT, but you'll have good award availability.

Finally, if you know specifically where you'll be going and know that a foreign carrier like LH is available 100% of the time, you can take the plunge and try them. As you learned, though, they're less generous with full EQM earnings compared to US/UA.

For me, I'd rather have elite benefits than just a bunch of miles somewhere, as I always manage to find a redemption that works. So I stick with US based on the routes I fly out of my home airport.

I agree. I started travelling for work (long hauls only) 2.5 years ago. I do UA and AA and have good status on both.

I always accrued on the US airline. It just makes things easier to have airline miles in fewer buckets (US buckets) than all over the world.

I find it REALLY hard these day to stay 100% loyal. This #1 because of cost. 1 trip AA is by far cheaper, the next UA is by far cheaper. And as I travel all over the world, the routing is important. This year UA had better routing to Beijing and Vienna (both direct from ORD at good times). So I've been on UA this year. Last year was all AA.

As a side note, I can only fly UA home to visit my parents. So while I find AA more rewarding, I need to keep earning UA miles for trips home for Turkey/Xmas/etc.

Start by reading your employer's travel policy very carefully. Is use of a preferred provider encouraged or required? Do you pick your flights and hotels? Are you allowed to pay more for nonstop flights, which are likely to be US? For foreign travel, are USA carriers ever required and how are codeshares treated for such rules?

There is no preferred provider for flights or hotels.
We are expected to use our best judgement and choose the most economical option that meets our needs.
So there is flexibility in what that means.
If a nonstop is only slightly more expensive and it's more convenient, booking it isn't a problem.

In that case, I'd follow everyone's suggestions to sign up for both UA and AA frequent flyer programs and also for one or two hotel loyalty programs, and get a couple of credit cards which allow you to transfer points into both hotel award programs and frequent flyer programs (Chase Sapphire Preferred and American Express Starwood Preferred Guest, perhaps), and then see where the points start piling up. Hard to go wrong with that approach!

How many EQM do you think you'll fly? Look at the benefits that you'd earn on each airline with that level and see which is more appealing to you. If I flew 100k miles or more, I'd prefer AA's 8 SWU vs UA's 6 GPU, but since I only fly 50k miles, I prefer the unlimited domestic upgrades on UA vs AA's 500 mile vouchers. There are tradeoffs for each program.

That's hard to predict since it varies depending on project.
If I'm assigned to a domestic project, it will probably average 2 trips per month, but those could be 1000 mile round trips or 4000 mile round trips. If I'm assigned to a European project, it could be 1 trip each month or maybe only 1 trip every two months.

So it could really be anywhere from 20k to 100k in a year. I'm thinking the chances of going over 100k are probably pretty slim.