After staying close to home most of 2006, I've been in an intense travel wave since mid-September, although three of the trips have been award tickets so my mileage total doesn't reflect it. I basically started my own business a year ago, and things have started to dramatically pick up this fall.

Current state: I can fly from either SEA or PDX (PDX is closer). I have about 40K miles in my Alaska Mileage Plan account, and both Business and Personal Visas that earn miles. I have about 18,000 miles to earn MVP.

Future plans: I have four trips to MSP, one to DTW, one to ATL and one to SLC already scheduled for this fall. I'll probably fly 75,000 miles in 2007 if trends hold up and I have complete control over my flight schedules. The travel will be concentrated in the Midwest and East Coast.

If I fly Northwest, Delta or American and credit the miles to my Mileage Plan account, I'll earn MVP status easily in 2006, but MVP Gold is probably out of reach. I'd hit MVP Gold for 2007 in May or June.

Or I could do a Platinum challenge on American. I'd make it with three of the trips, but I'd lose the opportunity to earn MVP on Alaska.

If I did that, I'd also see about getting the AAdvantage credit card for home and business to keep my miles consolidated in one place.

Before I went out on my own, the choice was easy because I always flew Alaska to various places on the West Coast. Now, I'm not so sure and I could use some help. I also looked at Northwest's plan but it didn't seem as good to me as the others - and I avoid Northwest whenever I can because their customer service seems dramatically worse than the other airlines.

Whaddya think?

Going with AA will be significantly more limiting on the choice of airlines that collect mileage, since it will be just AA for domestic travel in the continental United States. In contrast, going with AS will allow collecting miles on AS, AA, CO, DL, and NW, although not all will count toward elite status. Plus, you are near airports where AS has a heavy presence.

What is your objective - upgrades or mileage ?

It may be difficult to stick to just AA given your planned flying. As you pointed out, with AS you can credit your NW, AA, and DL miles to your AS account. In addition to making MVP Gold next year, with 75,000 miles credited to AS you'll also get the 50,000 mile bonus. You didn't mention it, but remember that the AS VISA card gives you a $50 companion ticket each year and using the card is now the only way to get the 1,000 mile online booking bonus. The AA online booking bonus is 500 miles. You might also want to look at getting an AS EasyBiz account to rack up even more AS miles since you own your own business now.

You guys brought up a couple of angles I hadn't recognized.

I already have an EasyBiz account, but I haven't used it so far because their ticket prices for partner flights are much more expensive (sometimes > 2x) than if I book directly with the airlines.

Right now, I've been using award tickets for last-minute travel to meet with prospects (to conserve cash) but the balance is already shifting towards client-reimbursed travel which means I don't have to be so cost-conscious.

I have to say that I've been very pleased with Alaska's Awards Desk's ability to accomodate me with awards travel (on their partner airlines), even on very short notice.

Thanks for helping me explore my options.

I second this. Being a NW flyer who often flys Alaska but also does a good bit of flying on other airlines Alaska's many partners make keeping all my miles in one account painless. I switched from Delta to Alaska some years ago just for this reason.

The other thing to examine is since you'll be on AA metal for a significant amount of time, you'll get better treatment as one of "theirs" for upgrades, irreg ops, etc.

That said, the ability to collect from several different carriers with the AS plan is enticing.

You may also want to consider another approach to credit card usage. You can earn Alaska miles with both the Starwood Preferred Guest credit card from American Express and Diners Club Mastercard from Citibank. However, these cards do not automatically transfer the miles to your Alaska account. Instead they are accumulated and can be transferred when required to any of a couple dozen airlines. This gives you additional flexibility to redeem through Alaska or through another airline or a hotel program.

The Starwood card's unique benefit is a 25% bonus when you transfer blocks of 20,000 points which becomes 25,000 miles in most airline programs. This means you can actually earn more miles per dollar on most purchases than using Alaska's own card. The annual fee is waived the first year and is only $30 thereafter. The card is now issued in both personal and business versions.

The Diners Club Mastercard's unique benefits are the ability to transfer to multiple hotel programs and better insurance. The annual fee is $95.

dennis

My answer is none of the above. Join NW's program and you can fly NW, CO, DL or AS out of PDX or SEA. True, if you're down with the Eskimo, you'll get upgrades on AS, but when you fly others you won't.

With NW, you'll get a good upgrade percentage and get upgraded on CO's flights. With 75K miles you'll also get platinum, which offers other benefits such as increased award availability, 1k free miles when you don't get upgraded on NW, etc. Basically, you'll get upgrade more on the things you fly.

The AS value proposition might be close, but the AA one isn't.

I would opt for NW given their range of partners but definitely tough choice with AS. But NW strengths are in the Midwest and East Coast while AS strength is West Coast and Alaska, plus AS have tie in's with smaller hotel chains (West Coast, for example.)

I choose NW (over AS) for 2 reasons: NW have a great transpac service that AS lacks and AS presence outside of the West Coast is minimal.

Actually NW does tie in to WestCoast/Red Lion's GuestAwards program. You can set your earnings preference to miles and choose NW, AS, DL, or AA to get 500 miles/stay.