In an earlier post, I detailed how to choose the right hotel loyalty program where I detailed how I chose Marriott as my preferred hotel brand. Reasons like a huge portfolio, convenience of amenities and tons of locations were the primary reasons why I chose Marriott to pool my loyalty and collect most of my hotel points. When choosing an airline, although the way I fell in to my preferred airline happened by chance, the reasons why I stay are the same.

When choosing an airline loyalty program, you will want to consider the following things, in order of importance:

• Where does this airline travel? The more destinations, the better.
• Is this airline a part of an alliance with other airlines?
  • How many airlines are part of their alliance?
  • How many continents do they cover?
  • Are the airlines they’re aligned with reputable?
• How is the customer service reputation OR how has your experience been flying with them?
• And lastly, what are the itineraries like to your favorite or desired destinations?

I took all of the above points into consideration when I decided on American Airlines. They have a great alliance (Oneworld) with other large airlines from all over the world that I can redeem and earn miles with, their price and itinerary almost always align with my travel goals, and I have almost always had a positive experience with them, less unforeseen delays and cancellations due to weather. Of course, I still fly the other large airlines when I have to, especially when American Airlines doesn’t have the most ideal price or itinerary for how I want to travel, but I collect the most points with AAdvantage from credit card sign-up bonuses, shopping portals and actual miles flown.

Let’s break down specifics of what you need to consider when choosing your airline loyalty program.

Where Does The Airline Travel To?

Smaller airlines such as Southwest and RyanAir may travel internationally but not only are they not a part of any alliances, their list of destinations is not as expansive as those of the bigger airlines such as American, United and Delta. Not taking the alliances into consideration, however, and just looking at the one loyalty program, ask yourself where that airline travels to. Southwest has been growing its list of destinations to include Central America and the Caribbean but they don’t fly to Europe, Asia, Africa or the South Pacific. If you don’t see a long-haul flight to any of those destinations in your near future, it would be fine to collect miles with Southwest – I would even recommend it as they typically have great redemption value and people overall love flying that airline.

But say you do have dreams of visiting countries like England, South Africa, Japan, New Zealand and Chile, you’re going to want to collect airline miles with a program that can help you get there. In addition to airlines like American flying to all of the destinations that I just named, they also partner with airlines that travel to those destinations as well: Qantas to New Zealand and Australia, JAL to Japan and British Airways to England. Not to mention the airlines that are a part of Oneworld that are the national carries of countries like Mexico, Brazil, Dubai and more. Which brings us to our next consideration when choosing an airline loyalty program:

Is This Airline Part of an Alliance?

The best teams are made of people bringing lots of different things to the table. And it’s important to know what your airline alliance is bringing to the table before pooling your points (and your energy) into one over another. I already mentioned that you want to research what continents your airline alliance covers but you’ll also want to consider how reputable and well-known the other airlines are. Do you know that there are some airlines that rate so poorly in terms of safety, that they aren’t even allowed to fly in the US? There are. I would be surprised to learn that any large US carriers are actually partnered with unsafe airlines but do your due diligence and a quick google search to ensure that you won’t have to worry about that later.

Another reason why an alliance should be important to you is because you can earn miles on partner airlines and, in most cases, redeem your miles for free flights on partner airlines as well. This means that you’re not tied to exclusively flying long-haul with your main airline. As much as I love American Airlines, I cannot fly a domestic product long-haul; it’s miserable and I don’t recommend it. But thankfully AA partners with British Airways which makes flying overseas a little bit more comfortable in economy. A little bit.

Pro-tip: Collecting miles to fly economy is all great but have you ever seen Business and First Class long-haul seats and experiences? Insert heart-eye emoji here. For our dream trip to Toyko for the Olympics, we’re saving those miles for business and first class airfare. The Asian carriers are known for having the best product and I cannot wait to fly long-haul in the definition of airline comfort. I haven’t used my miles for overseas first class but I have for domestic first class and I highly recommend it. If you can find a deal on using your points for anything higher than economy, it is almost always a good deal.

How Has Your Experience Been Flying with That Airline?

Reputation is everything but I prefer to consider my own personal experiences flying with an airline. Every airline is going to come up against delays and the random desk agent who’s having a terrible day. I have had less than ideal experiences on Delta, United and Southwest as well as American but more often than not, American Airlines treats me right. And plus, I’m a pretty easy going passenger, I try not to bother the flight attendants if they don’t bother me and I smile at every single service person I ever come into contact with. I owe that attitude to my own years working in service and knowing how much a simple and genuine, “Good morning, how are you?” can set the tone for any interaction.

I cannot recommend enough that you be really honest with yourself here. If you write off every airline that’s ever canceled one of your flights, you wouldn’t travel anywhere. And if you’re waiting to be treated like a queen in basic economy, you’re going to be waiting a long time. It’s unfortunate but true, so do your best to think honestly about your previous experiences and decide which airline you can see yourself flying with often for the sake of mileage earning and redemptions.

In addition to the aforementioned items, the last thing I considered when choosing American Airlines as my airline of choice was the average itinerary.

What Are the Itineraries Like to Your Favorite or Desired Destinations?

Even before having a baby but even more now, flight times and schedules were very important to me. If I can find a flight that takes off around my son’s sleep schedule, I’m happy, and if I can get to where I’m going without a layover, that’s even better. Do you mind 1, 2 or 3 layovers? How long of a layover can you stand? Are you okay with building your own itinerary with multiple bookings because you can’t get straight to where you need to be on one itinerary? All of these are as important considerations as the other items I listed above.

Each airline has at least one hub. American Airlines has several hubs, including Dallas, Philadelphia and Phoenix. Delta Airlines’s hub is in Atlanta, Georgia, and United Airlines’s hub is in Newark, New Jersey. All of these airlines have other hubs but these are the largest. A hub usually means that this airport is where they have the most flights and if you’re near one of these hubs, you should probably just choose the corresponding airline and be done with it. For example, Delta runs Atlanta’s airport and luckily, they’re a huge airline; if you live in or near Dallas, American Airlines should be your airline of choice.

But say you don’t live near a large airport hub but you travel frequently and convenience is important to you. Think of choosing the airline that often gives you the best route and schedule to your most frequently visited destinations or future destinations. We live in between San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose airports. Last year when we went to Italy, we got a great deal with British Airways (collected AAdvantage/AA miles) and flew out of San Jose. Even though San Jose is a smaller airport compared to San Francisco and Oakland, the price was right and it was actually more convenient than flying out of the bigger airports.

This was a long and juicy post but hopefully really helpful in terms of helping you decide which airline is going to work best for your points and miles strategy. Let me know in the comments if these points were helpful to you and if not, what do you take into consideration when choosing an airline loyalty program?