Until a few years ago, one major airline was about as likely
to encourage you to fly another one, as a Chevy dealer is to recommend a Ford.
But all that changed with the formation of the three big Airline Alliances:
oneworld, SkyTeam, and Star Alliance. These are groups of major US and
foreign airlines, whose partnership goes beyond the old-style
"code-sharing" where a seat sold as Airline A might really be flown
by Airline B. In these alliances, they coordinate frequent flyer programs,
Elite Status, boarding and through-luggage checking, and other benefits. For
our goal of maximized miles, we need to choose an alliance more than we need to
choose a specific airline.
If you're in the US
or Canada,
I recommend you focus on one airline in either SkyTeam or Star Alliance, or perhaps
one from each partnership. Oneworld will be of less value, since it has only
one North American based airline, American Airlines. That means there's no real
benefit from that alliance, for a US/Canada-based flyer who is looking to
travel mostly in the US and Canada.
SkyTeam has three
US-based airlines, Continental, Delta,
and Northwest in the alliance, giving you have good service to almost anywhere
in the US and Canada. They
also have several major foreign carriers: Air France (France), Alitalia (Italy),
Czech Airlines, KLM (Holland),
Korean Air, and AeroMexico.
Star Alliance has
both United and US Airways in the alliance for US routings, plus Air Canada,
giving excellent North American and Caribbean coverage. They also have the
largest group of foreign carriers: Air New Zealand, ANA (Japan), Asiana
(Korea), BMI (British Midland), LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa (Germany),
Scandinavian, Singapore Airlines, Spanair (Spain), TAP (Portugal), Thai, and
Varig (Brazil). If you're looking to earn miles for foreign travel, they may be
your best bet.
Oneworld has only
American Airlines for North American service. Granted, American is a large
airline with service throughout the US,
much of the Caribbean, and some Canada
and Mexico
destinations. But they are your only choice for travel in the US if you want to earn miles. They
do have many foreign airlines: Aer Lingus (Ireland),
British Airways (but you can't earn American Airlines miles on British Airways
US-to-UK flights), Cathay Pacific (China),
Finnair (Finland), Iberia (Spain),
LAN (Chile), and Qantas (Australia).
Remember: Pick your alliance, and then pick one airline in that alliance. Don't spread miles between
Continental and Delta, for example – you can never combine miles between two
programs, even if they're in the same alliance. So if you fly 15,000 miles on
Continental and give them your Continental number, and another 10,000 miles on
Delta using your Delta number, you don't have a free trip. Even though you flew
25,000 miles on SkyTeam members, the miles didn't all go into the same program.
Thus you're out of luck. But if you took the very same trips, instead using
your Continental OnePass number even when flying on Delta, you'd have a free
US/Canada ticket good on Continental, Delta, or Northwest.