Brand New...
 

I'm new to this forum and had a question about which would be the best airline to choose for frequent flyer miles. I'm starting a job soon and will be traveling alot and I have no idea anything about flying, only flown about 4 times my whole life. Thanks.

1. Where do you live?
2. Do you know where you will be travelling for work? Domestic or international? About how many trips per year?
3. Where might you want to go with the free trips that you earn?

Something else to try to answer if possible. Do you know if your employer has a contract with a specific airline? Larger companies often do, and you may be economically forced to use a certain carrier or alliance.

And, if that is the case, you might stand a chance of getting "comped" frequent flyer status through your employer on a specific carrier. Make sure you ask coworkers about that once you start.

Tom in Stockholm, Sweden tonight

i personally would suggest earning miles on American Airlines (AA AAdvantage) for travel on oneworld airlines, and All Nippon Airways (NH Mileage Club) for travel on star alliance airlines.

http://www.oneworld.com/
http://www.staralliance.com/
http://www.skyteam.com/

for each alliance pick 1 airline to credit the miles to.

That's the strategy I follow also. For Star Alliance I use United because being a United member I get the full domestic Star Alliance experience, but with US Air there are many aspects of United that US Air members can't use (economy plus seats).

I think the more important decision is which hotel chain to use. Airlines are still very regional, but hotels are ubiquitous so pick one program (Hilton, Marriot, Starwood) and stick with it.
Always sign up for a program because you never know how much you'll be staying with that chain in the future, but don't duplicate your programs (not really possible with hotels, but quite easy with airlines).

Nothing is worse than having orphan points.

home airport
 

Availability of service at your home airport and to likely destinations will matter most.

personally, even if it was very inconvenient to avoid skyteam, i would do it.

i even have lounge access through amex, but i just dont see any value in the miles or status. (thanks to FT)

id recommend starwood for hotels as their points are the most valuable.

unless youre traveling to places where there are no starwood, then you have to go with another chain, either by itself, or in addition to starwood.

Even if you stay at a hotel chain only infrequently (e.g. you usually stay at a different one, but for this trip, the one you usually stay at is full or inconvenient or whatever), sign up for the program. They may give you minor freebies (e.g. free breakfast), possibly reduce the chance of being walked to a different hotel in an overbooking situation, and can throw frequent flyer points to the airline program of your choice if you don't want to collect hotel points for a chain that you use too rarely for the hotel points to matter.

One special case is if you do a lot of US west coast flying. If so, Alaska Airlines may be useful as either a primary program, or a backup program if your primary is Star Alliance (United Airlines or US Airways). Alaska Airlines is a frequent flyer partner of both the US-based One World airline (American Airlines) and the three US-based Sky Team airlines (Delta Airlines, Continental Airlines, Northwest Airlines).

The so-called "low cost carriers" are generally frequent flyer program isolates, though you might as well join the programs if you fly them, just in case your travel on them is enough to get an award.

Wow, thanks for all the reponses! I'm from DC and I would imagine that I'll be traveling domestically primarily. Because I'll be using Dulles Airport, I thought about JetBlue might be the best choice. I'm not quite sure exactly how much I'll be traveling, depending on what my work decides to do with me, but it would be great if I can use my frequent mileage for intercontinential travels, which means JetBlue might be a bad idea. Does anybody know if Southwest and AA fly to other countries? (Asia and Europe)

For Asia and Europe, Southwest is useless. American flies worldwide, either itself or via its participation in the OneWorld Alliance. You can find out much more about each program from their websites, www.southwest.com and www.aa.com. Find out which fits you best and pick. You can join multiple programs, and between Southwest, JetBlue, and American, there is no overlap in mileage programs.

fuzz

Why the desire for low cost carriers? I avoid Southwest like the plague. I have flown southwest once in my life and that is enough for me. JetBlue is nice because they have live TV and are non-union.

If you're by Dulles it's going to be hard to avoid United.

American Airlines is a full fledged legacy and will get you pretty much everywhere you need to go or the other oneworld parters can.

for most purposes out of washington, it's american, united or usairways.

other carriers only enter as a choice if your business flights often take you to Atlanta or Cincinnati (Delta), Newark or Houston (continental), minneapolis and detroit (Northwest) or international destinations.

The quick expiration of Southwest points and the lack of international flights, makes them a poor choice unless you travel a lot in a year and want a domestic flight. Jet Blue has relatively limited service out of Washington and i dont believe it has much on an international connection.

I think you have a lot of research ahead of you. Time to visit some of the individual airline forums here on FT.

Tom in the Finnair Lounge at Stockholm's Arlanda Airport