Best flyer mile program for frequent travel to Japan?

If you don't get a satisfactory answer, you may want to talk your question over to www.flyertalk.com I think (read: don't know for certain) that most mileage programs pay off in roughly similar amounts. Given that your once-a-year japan flight is going to exceed all of your in-country travel put together, you may want to just take a look at your best option for flying to japan (whether this is cheapest, most luxurious, or prettiest company colors, you'll have to decide) and see if they have any mileage partners or if they have good prices within the US. Most of the time, you're going to be paying for your trip with dollars, so you should be concerned about the best deal on that front first.

Delta seems to be consistently the cheapest to fly from San Francisco to Tokyo, by about $200 round trip. But I have no experience with their miles program.

Check 1. How many miles do you earn for each flight with the different alliances (the two major ones are star alliance and oneworld) 2. How many points do you need to get where you want to go? Just recently for across the pacific it was about 75k with star alliance, 150k with oneworld.

I'd also consider which airline primarily flies out of San Francisco (if that's going to be the base for your US travel). I think United services west coast cities more so than Delta, which is based in Atlanta, for example. A lot of US airlines also "code share" with other US airlines, so you may be able to earn United miles on Continental or vice versa. Check out some of the air alliances like Sky Team and Star Alliance to see what would work best for you (as mentioned by defcom1 above).

SFO is a United hub. I'm P2 on United and they just added Continental to the Star Alliance which means qualifying miles on them as well as future domestic upgrade reciprocity. To be honest with you, I don't necessarily think you're gonna be racking up crazy miles for elite status, but mileage rewards can be pretty appealing. Only 300k for a business class RTW!

As mentioned above - you really just want to pick one of the major airline point-sharing groups (star alliance, skyteam, or oneworld). I'll also add that pretty much every major airline has a branded credit card, that they'll typically bribe you tens of thousands of points to sign up for.

If you'll be flying out of SFO most of the time, United/Star Alliance seems like the obvious choice. I live in Denver, which is another United hub, but flew American on my most recent trip to Japan. Connecting through LAX is typically no big deal, as I've flow in and out of there a lot. However, on the day I was returning to the States, flights out of Narita were being cancelled left and right on account of a typhoon - mine included. I ended up getting routed through DFW on a flight that left 8 hours late, followed by a 4 hour layover, and capped off by a 2 hour flight back the way I came. By the time all was said and done, I had been awake for 28 hours straight and wanted to die. Afterwards, I realized that, had I simply flown United, the domestic leg of the trip would have been a piece of cake, as I would have had my pick of flights between SFO and DEN, both being United hubs and all. It could have very well shaved 7 hours off the trip. Lesson learned: if your home airport is a major hub, stick with the home team.

If you're only going to Japan once a year and 2-3 domestic trips it will take time to get to get enough award miles for a free trip (domestic) and then a lot longer time for a free trip across the Pacific. But you should still sign up for any and all award programs you can but try and stick with one airline. After you fly enough miles or segments, you'll get promoted into a higher tier of their program where you get a bonus multiplier for every flight. (i.e. if you get 1 mile for each mile flown in the standard program, you'll get 1.25 miles as a gold level or whatever). If you want to really rake in the miles, you buy full fare first or business class tickets. When I was flying for business my company paid for business class on international flights. I stopped flying for work and I still have enough miles left for a few more free domestic flights. What your current planned flights will probably get you is upgrades pretty quickly on your domestic trips and with a higher tier in the program, you get access to better seats in coach. And you're treated slightly better than the people w/o membership. Although AA does have nonstops from SFO to Narita and it does partner with JAL, jal0021 is right, they have a lot more flights landing in DFW or ORD than in SFO or LAX. So if there's a problem on the Japan-US leg you might have to fly into DFW or ORD and then backtrack back to the West Coast. AA was the airline I flew for years and where I have all my points, but their service is so lacking I'm hesitant to every fly on them again. AA's international service is better than its domestic worse than Greyhound service. But it is still inferior to JAL or any non-US airline. I'll never forget my last flight through Tokyo. I flew into Tokyo on JAL and it was great (the flight attendants have different costumes for the meal service parts of the flight) and the service was outstanding. On the AA leg from Tokyo to Chicago, I remember sitting on the plane as the flight is boarding when a shrill AA flight attendant starts yelling at an older Japanese woman to sit down (the woman was trying to put her stuff in that overhead bin that is overhead) in English rather than doing the right thing and helping the woman with her bag or getting a Japanese speaking attendant to help. Contrast that with my experience on JAL when I got in trouble with a flight attendant. As an American used to flipping on my phone the second the wheels touch ground, I turned on my phone and it was beeping due to a bunch of SMS that came in while I was on the flight. The flight attendant came to me and said respectfully that I needed to keep my phone off until I as inside the terminal. Not only could he do her job without yelling at her customers, she also spoke the customer's language. (AA will sometimes have Japanese speaking crew members but they're usually all up front with the business or first class people). My point is: American sucks and if you have a choice and the cost isn't that much more, pick JAL or some other Japanese airline. You may wish to have one frequent flyer strategy for international flights and another for domestic (hopefully they can be linked as affiliates but unless you start flying a lot more it won't make too much of a difference)

Thanks for all the info, it is very helpful. My main goal here is to be able to use my miles for upgrades to a higher class on my trips to Japan. 11 or 12 hours in coach sucks. It should be much more pleasant in business class. I plan to fly to Japan using either ANA or JAL, because as I have heard here and elsewhere, the customer service is better than on US-based airlines. As far as I can tell, this means I have these options: JAL, which is partnered with American Airlines (although they have hinted at changing alliances earlier this year) ANA, which is partnered with United. ANA seems to have the following advantages: 1) They aren't bankrupt, like JAL is. (If JAL liquidates or is purchased, what would happen to my miles?) 2) They will give me credit for miles I fly on other Star Alliance airlines, which includes three US-based airlines: United, US Airways, and Continental. 3) They have a US-based credit card which I can use to get flyer miles. I don't think ANA practices Starnet blocking. Since my primary use of miles will be upgrades on ANA flights to Japan, it seems like it makes the most sense to keep my miles with ANA. Whenever I fly within the US, I can use one of their partner airlines and get credit for miles. Am I missing something? Are there good reasons to reconsider JAL, or another airline? (I think I'll cross-post this at Flyertalk. But which forum would be the best? The Japan forum?)