No, I got it... I was just thinking that in terms of upgrades/E+/etc. access, the BD membership doesn't get her very far. RCC's are nice, but significantly less so if you have no layovers and are on a tight schedule.
We're a tall family (she's 5'11", and I'm 6'4"), and so leg room is as important as anything.

I switched from AA when they canned MRTC. For me at 6'3" it's a no brainer - UA because of E+. A couple of months ago I sat in the back on a transcon and was shocked at how I'd forgotten how cramped it was compared to E+.

Yeah, it's nice, isn't it?? I've got MSN-ORD-NRT-BKK-NRT-ORD-MSN coming up, and it's all in E+ (well, except for the MSN-ORD-MSN RJs). Should help a lot!

Seems she should pick one airline from each alliance if her flights are so distributed. No reason to have NW and DL different accounts simply because she flew that airline. They have reciprocity agreements for earning/redeeming. So breaking it down, the choice would be between UA/US for *A or CO/DL for SkyTeam. I wouldn't even bother with OneWorld as most of the places she flies to would involve multiple connections and AA does not discount on these routes, i.e. PDX, AMS, MKE.

Star Alliance argument
So now the arguments, why UA? Most non-stop and transcontinental flights in area and E+ seating helps.

Why US? Discounted flights and easier unlimited upgrades for elites as opposed to other airlines

SkyTeam argument
Why CO? Great partnership with Amtrak for earning/redeeming and Platinum status gets access to Acela lounge. Also good fares and codeshare with Virgin Atlantic. Lastly, domestic upgrades!

Why DL? Domestic awards do no require Saturday night stay and allow stopover enroute when flying DL plus partnership with Virgin Atlantic.

Why NW? Upgrades!

Lastly with European partners KL and AF, great connections all over Europe even from IAD.

I guess I would be more inclined towards CO or DL, despite having to make connections when flying domestically. But that is why you would have a secondary account such as UA.

So in conclusion, having to fly all over the map, it would be nearly impossible to limit to one airline for all your travel needs. However, if focused on alliances, you could keep your frequent flyer accounts limited to two.

Now the next question, what hotel partnerships are you looking at now?

idealflyer-
Thanks!
This is the kind of analysis I was looking for. She knows about the NW/DL thing, and the only reason she got DL at one point is because of their partnership with Virgin Atlantic.

She has top tier status with Amtrak (It's a lot easier when there aren't several carriers to choose from! :) ), so Acela lounge isn't a major concern. I think I agree with you that one from each alliance is the best approach. The only potential thought I had was choosing AS instead of one SkyTeam and AA (since AS covers both pretty well). However, then you get back to the upgrades/benefits argument, and I don't know that she'd ever see the benefits on AS because she doesn't fly them regularly.

So, I think so far, UA is in (I really don't like US, but then again, I don't live/travel up and down the east coast much).

The NW/CO/DL debate is a tougher one...NW/CO have reciprocal upgrades, which is nice. However, the partial EQM earning between them is kind of a pain in the butt.

I think that she should still get some account that would cover AA flights, since she will fly them every now and then (for example next week to California).

As far as hotels go, I'm just trying to get some momentum going with the airlines, and I'll worry about that later. Hopefully, eventually she'll get "it".

One more question - how many miles per year total?

The problem with multiple programs is achieving just low level status in each when in reality at least midlevel (e.g., *A gold) is where the best benis start to kick in.

I'm not sure, but I took a stab at it in post #9:
"As far as how much flying...hard for me to tell, because she doesn't always tell me when she's going somewhere. But I would guess that she covers significantly more ground than I do, and I covered about 80k EQMs in 2007. I would guess that she flies to the west coast 1-2 times/month, the midwest/south 1-2 times/month and then overseas 3-4 times/year. I would guess that she would end up in the 100k miles per year area."

What I should really do is see if I can get her to recall all of her flying in the last year (route, airline, etc.). That would really help, but I can already imagine the response I'll get just for asking.


I think that she could probably reach midlevel on one carrier and low level on another, or probably top-tier if she focused on one airline, but like I said... convincing her of that will be tough.

Here's the sad part given that being part of a single program at the top-tier would likely give her the best overall result.

Ain't that the truth...preaching to the choir my friend... Maybe if I can get a few hundred flyertalkers to say so, I can just point her to this thread!

Or taking the same flight as her sometime I could say, "Excuse me GBadger sister, could you please step aside so that I might get to the red carpet and stroll onto the aircraft while you watch with envy".