Which programme?
 

I'm leaving Qatar soon. I have one flight with QR planned to SE Asia and the flight out will be with them. I'm currently Gold member. In the future I'll be flying to Abu Dhabi regularly but will be based in the UK. Business travel will most likely be with Etihad, vacations with whoever has the best flight times and prices. No substantial airmiles left in QR. Should I book the flight out and SE Asia trip in a yet to be created account with British Airways or are there better options? Is there anything useful I can do with Etihad miles?

I use the miles for award tickets and don't think I'll get enough for a decent status.

Have you looked at this thread?
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...help-here.html

Ok, I'll have a look there. At the moment I'm not even sure if there's a right or wrong ff programme, or whether another alliance might be useful. Though Etihad, I believe is not a member of any alliance *sigh*

Etihad is trying to form its own alliance :).
There's the airberlin FFP topbonus - airberlin is in oneworld and the Etihad Alliance at the same time (Etihad has a large stake in the company). It's the only oneworld FFP that allows you to earn status-qualifying miles when flying Etihad-marketed flights. See more: http://www.airberlin.com/en-CH/site/...nerName=etihad. Other than that - AAdvantage also partners with Etihad - you can earn and redeem AA miles for EY flights, but they are not status-qualifying unless booked as AA codeshares.

Oh, thanks a lot! I need to read into this but wonder if Air Berlin would make sense if I'm based in the UK. Priority for collecting miles is: award flights and lounge access.

Currently QR gold, but will be downgraded to Silver in October.

There's also Flysmiles: same as airberlin, Srilankan has seen Etihad take up a stake in the airline. Etihad miles currently would not be counted towards status (tier miles), though if airberlin can do it, why not Srilankan in the future?

https://www.flysmiles.com/our-partne...etihad-airways

Even if they should do this in the future (SriLankan is not a member of the Ethiad alliance yet, and Hogan didn't even mention the airline during his GBTA event address when he discussed alliances), Flysmiles has and always had very high UL metal requirements for earning status. Half of the miles or sectors needed to attain sapphire or emerald status need to be flown on UL (as opposed to the four-flights-minimum that BA or AA require). For anyone not based in Sri Lanka or at least with the opportunity to book UL flights regularly connecting in CMB while travelling across their network to/in Asia, Flysmiles definitely is not the best path to oneworld status, despite their low mileage requirements.