Which FF program to join?

[Tortuga]

I am in a difficult situation with regards to accumulating points. I travel every 5 weeks overseas out of Buenos Aires, on a variety of airlines. The problem is I usually never end up on the same airline or even frequent flyer affiliation for any extended period of time so I end up with a lot of small points spread over numerous different programs. Does anyone have some advice on which programs I should be joining to give me the best chance of accumulating something decent status wise - I wish there was a single program for all airlines, my goal would be a lot easier. I should also note that I am usually booked on the lowest bucket fairs and usually have only seamans tickets, I believe most airlines don't let you upgrade this however I know from workmates that some airlines do allow it and a friend with high status on Air Canada quite often gets upgrades approved via request or operationally. My American workmates also get a decent amount of upgrades when flying within the US. Would appreciate any words of wisdom. So far I am with Qantas, United airlines, Flying Blue, Emirates and Aerolineas Argentina. I am assuming the obvious answer to this question is the airline that I will be flying with the most, unfortunately I have no idea what that will be because the possibilities for my work locations are quite open.

 

[Moopere]

You should be able to try and concentrate on the large Alliances and by so doing forward your points to your preferred airline within one or more alliances.

For example, perhaps instead of Aerolineas you could choose LAN from Argentina, I'm not sure how your flights are chosen, but in this example, you'd fly LAN but forward your FF points and status earn towards Qantas or one of the other OneWorld carriers. ... or even keep them with LAN and forward other Oneworld flights back to them.

The middle eastern carriers present a problem as they mostly are unaligned and this keeps me off them, for the most part. Perhaps you could choose to use Royal Jordanian instead of Emirates and forward your miles on to QF?