Diversify away from US? Strategy Help
 

Strategy question for the experts. A friend of mine flies SBA-DCA roughly 3 times a month for work. He always flies US and earned about 170,000 in 2007. Should he diversify a bit? It seems to me that with so many miles flown it might be worthwhile to have status on several airlines (and not have all of his proverbial eggs in one basket). Problem is that the connections out of SBA aren't great. I see that AS has a pretty good connect through LAX.

Any suggestions?

He could do a "challenge' on AA and get midtier status pretty quick. You can put your Alaska flights into your AA account. Challenges are covered in the wiki on the AA forum. AA has a small lounge at DCA and now offers free wi-fi to members. The agents there are among the best in the system.

You might look at the status match master thread and see if Alaska will comp in a U.S. flyer. You can put AA miles, among others, into an Alaska account. They also have a wide selection of partners that could make their program worth a look.

United

I'm not sure United buys him much because they're also in the *A. I would think it would be better to get into One World or Sky Team.