Earn rate is only half the game.
What is the burn rate (and rules) in ff miles, and cash co-payment if any.
FF miles/avios/points are not equal to earn or burn.
Even if many credit cards transfer to ffp's at the same rate. Now days many earn from non flying activities.

Seems that Lifemile AC domestic flights cost slightly more in points but slighly less in co-pay compared to TK redemptions.

One marked difference though is how much more availability AC releases to TK compared to Lifemiles. Take YUL-YVR, flights are available via TK almost every day, whereas Lifemiles barely get any.

(1) What is your home airport? NCE
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Standard/ Not refundable
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? >50 k
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? Almost lifetime plat ST, Ruby OW
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Price, choice of routes, comfort
(6) Which routes do you fly most often
East Asia, Japan, US, sometimes Oceania
(7) Preferred Airlines AC by necessity, other A or B are fine
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Work but self-employed, savings matter

Thanks !

You need to give more info here. STANDARD fares doesn�t mean much. Are these overseas flights in eco, prem eco, business or first? If eco, please specify more on light vs. normal etc. Also, please elaborate on the preferred airlines bit - not clear.

It's cheap fares in eco. If i was flying first i wouldn't really be looking at optimising my FF program.

Preferred airlines. Does it include out-of-alliance to compare, or in-alliance i already flew with ? Is it out of practicity or comfort ? ("i flew x and i liked it" ?).

What does AC, A & B mean?
Some airlines can have out of alliance ff partners.

Then i'd say in alliance i appreciated ANA, Eva and SG
From the LH core grp, Austrian and Swiss above the others.

Out of alliance, AF, Qatar, China Airlines, JAL.

Don't make any assumptions. I book business and first - and I am very much optimizing my FQTV programs!

o.k., so dirt cheap tickets? Cheapest Eco and most likely Eco light? That'll be tough ... > 50k miles, how much more than 50k?

You also haven't told us what you want from your FQTV program. What you have listed isn't related to that.

I don't know how much more miles in terms of pure metrics. Count something like 10 trips to (East) Asia + Japan, 10 to US / Canada, 3-4 to Aus / NZ, random number in Europe per year.

As to what to expect from FQTV, Lounges as comfy as possible comes first. Rest i'd say based on my other program experiences, appreciate seat selection early, ability to fix issues if cancellations or delays without having to spend infinite time haggling, potentially rate of free upgrades, and miles that actually are usable for something. I don't care much about extra luggages.

Is that what you need ?

o.k. wo you travel A LOT. 10 trips to Asia, 10 to US and then some more - you are traveling 250k and more miles a year. No matter what, you can make SAG on *A airlines, even if you book 25% earning fares. So you basically have that all set.

Your expectations above are not expectations from an FQTV program, lounge comfort is operating carrier, seat selection is operating carrier, fixing issues is operating (or ticketing) carrier etc. Your FQTV programs gives you SAG status which allows you to enter any *A lounge when flying a *A carrier. So for example I have UA*G and I fly Swiss all the time and use their lounges - the two are very separate.

What you need to look into and think about are the airlines you wish to fly. You wrote LX, OS and NH - then there is some BR. You should also IMHO look into TK (good network, apparently o.k. in Y, very good lounges). The seat selection will be your biggest issue. *A does not have seat selection (like OW does) benefits and this is all on the operating carrier. As long as you avoid lite/basic fares then all airlines will allow (premium) seat selection for their own Elites - NOT for Elite members from other *A carriers - just not a benefit with *A.
The other thing you need to consider is access to contract lounges (like the one in NCE) which is NOT a *A benefit and not all carriers will allow access to such lounges. Most will, but some don't. So depending on your O/D this could be an important consideration.

As a general rule, as long as you avoid K-class with LHG airlines, you can get to a 50% distance earning. e.g. L-class on LX and OS will earn 50% with AC and UA. Assuming 250k miles flown in L-class you'd be e.g. getting pretty much to United 1K status (assuming you can swing 4 UA segments somewhere) and certainly some AC status as well (they are changing their rules next year - haven't gone to fully understand that yet). So e.g. of you went with UA, 250k miles gives 250k earned miles (50% plus 100% bonus on LHG or NH flights), 22500 PQP and therefor 1K status with 280 +Ps that can be used for things like upgrades, gifting status etc.
Now, that won't solve your advance seat selection problem with partner airlines - the only way to solve this is to fly the airline (group) you have status with. So get LH Sen status (which should be no problem with the many flights your take, assuming you have enough LX/OS flights to get to the qualifying points). Here your earnings on LHG fares will be based on EUR spent (so that's going to sting); other airlines will be distance based. LH Sen will give you access to 'some' UG vouchers, but e.g. less so than with UA.

My advice to you is - settle on a carrier for long-haul flights (with your flight pattern that is probably either LHG or TK) to get to seat selection in Y - and then go with that FQTV program for the better or worse. They all have pros and cons.

A small addition to cfischer's detailed message, stick to a program until you become *G. Then if you're not happy with that airline try a status match to see if another airline works better for you.

Flying from/to NCE LH and TK are your best options. Unfortunately, IST is increasing the travel time when traveling to the States.

Considering M&M's latest updates for status validity (just 1 year so you've to keep the same tempo of flying every other year) I'd go with M&S.

Thanks, i will process all that.

Is LH meant to encompass all LH / MM core, or just refer to LH ? I personally always found LH itself low standards (hence maybe why i appreciated more OS).

M&M meant to cover LHG (LH, OS, LX, SN, AZ, VL, etc) LO and OU.

(1) What is your home airport? AMS/MAD/ZRH
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Y/J, depends on pricing & company policy (tbd)
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? Quite a bit on non-*A, will now be doing approx 1300 every other week which I could do on LX for the foreseeable future and maybe some longhaul but that's rare on *A
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? nothing at *A, would like to exclude status matching
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Lounge, fast security, good CS, redemptions, has to have a for-life programme
(6) Which routes do you fly most often intra Europe, to/from ZRH
(7) Preferred Airlines Almost all will be on LX, not necessarily preference just happens to serve those routes
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? mostly work

M&M would seem logical, but due to residence etc I can't get a M&M payment card.
Could transfer to M&S and TAP, but M&S (and A3) doesn't do lifetime and longhaul routes are usually direct and/or not *A
TAP should be taken over in the near future. Not necessarily a bad thing for me but feels like a bit of a gamble.
At the same time, AFKL/LHG integration could be nice but IAG probably wouldn't absorb the loyalty programme as with ITA & probably SAS soon.
In a similar vein, Asiana could be nice when also crediting ST to KE, but then running into the same payment card problem.

An alternative would be to keep doing ST/OW. The routes are also served by them, but often LX is simply cheaper and/or timing can work better.
Don't like to be wasting those miles & TPs haha

With your parameters it will have to be LH M&M I am afraid. There are very few programs that still have LT status and most will then require to fly their own metal for LT status (e.g. all NA programs). If you think you can get M&M Sen status then that's probably your best bet. 1300 miles - but how many segments is that? Every other week so 25x a year. If that is 100 segments then no problem. Will be a long road to LT status - better also book some l/h flights

Oh and the TAP program is terrible. OZ is going away, so that's not an option. You'll quickly run out of options.