For my specific situation, Etihad usually ended up having the most favorable travel duration, connection time, arrival and departure time, price etc. With Etihad, it's about 4 hours from my hometown to Abu Dhabi (AUH), and 15 hours from there to LAX.
It only took me a couple of to and fro journeys to get the silver card status. And by next year I was a gold card member, with lounge access in Abu Dhabi and Los Angeles. It was hilarious because I was only making a couple of journeys a year.
Also, I see comments here about the TSA screening situation.
Did you know that there's a US customs & immigration + TSA counter at Abu Dhabi?! If you're traveling to the US from Abu Dhabi, you have to get all the immigration processes (passport/visa verification and other stuff) done from the American consular officers at Abu Dhabi [1].
On your passport, the port of entry will be marked as AUH.
And the aircraft will fly as a domestic flight into the domestic terminal of your destination in the US. No immigration procedure in the US because it's already been done before the flight.
Multiple advantages to this:
1. If you anyway have a connecting flight to the US at AUH and have a couple of hours of waiting time, you can get the immigration process done whilst waiting for your connection.
2. (Convoluted logic follows) If for whatever reason you're denied entry to the US, in my case atleast, I would only have a 4 hours return time back to my hometown, as opposed to a 24+ hours of return time if I were denied entry once I physically reached the US. That's after traveling 24+ hours to get there in the first place. Cheaper and more convenient for everyone involved.
3. After your 15 hour flight to the US, you can take your luggage and walk out instead of having to go through the US immigration and customs processes when you're tired after the long journey.
[1] https://www.abudhabiairport.ae/en/services-and-facilities/us...