After reading numerous posts in the flyertalk forum for the past two weeks, I am still totally lost.

I would greatly appreciate any help in choosing a ff program!

In the past several years, I have not done much travel at all, but a recent career change requires me to start flying a lot more frequently. I will be paying for all tickets at my own expense, so would like to find a good value for the $$ vs comfort level along with good rewards benefits.

I am based in Los Angeles, and mostly will travel to Beijing, Taipei, and US domestic travel. In 2008, I plan to take the following:

2 roundtrips of LAX and PEK.
2 trips of LAX to PEK to TPE then to LAX (this can go in reverse order as well)
1 roundtrip of LAX to FLR
2 roundtrips of LAX to SFO
2 roundtrips of LAX to Chicago
1 roundtrip of LAX to New York

The travel might increase as situation changes.

I currently have very low miles on a couple of FF program:
AA 20,000 miles (most from credit card purchase, but no longer have the credit card)
UA 2,000 miles (no credit card at the moment)
JAL 6,000 miles
EVA 6,000 miles
Air China 20,000 km
Hilton Hhoner 190,000 points


Thanks in advance for any help and suggestion!!!

Don't know if anyone's answered you yet, but I'm a big fan of AA. First off, their flights out of LAX are more than reasonable. Second, depending on how quickly you are flying how many miles (that earn how many points), you can do one of the challenged and vault yourself into Gold Status, or even Platinum.

Head over to the AA forum and check out the stickies. They should tell you all you need to know.

-SF

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

Based out of LAX and going to Asia often, I would choose UA over AA.