Since you were probably cooling your heels on the road last week, when miserable weather led to a nationwide surge of travel disruptions—more than 6,600 flights were canceled and 51,000 were delayed, says FlightStats.com—you surely had the time to read or hear about the latest red-herring debate over frequent-flyer programs.

The just-before-Memorial Day drop of a "reward-seat availability survey" from a small consulting firm set off a frenzy of sensationalist newspaper stories, cable-news bloviating, and facile commentary from everyone from the proverbial man on the street to the once-a-year vacation flyer. Everyone was suddenly an expert. And, naturally, everyone wanted to share a tale of woe about their experience claiming an award on some frequent-flyer plan or another.

It's only that last bit that even merits discussion. Like almost all business travel, the quality of a frequent-flyer program is an essentially selfish judgment: If you get what you want, you're happy regardless of what a survey says. If you don't, disparaging the parentage of the offending airline's chief executive is generally your only recourse.

As we've discussed before, frequent-flyer programs aren't about frequent flying anymore: They are, as one of the plan's pioneers told me years ago, multichannel marketing and sales vehicles. That they give away "free" seats is almost beside the point now. I've called them unregulated lotteries because airlines are not legally required to disclose the odds of "winning" or even give away a single seat. And I never go on a radio or TV show without my sound bite at the ready: "What part of restricted did you think the airlines were kidding about?"

If your goal is to fly the family to Disney World for 25,000 miles a seat on President's Day Weekend, you're sure to be disappointed. If your rating of a frequent-flyer program is based solely on your ability to fly first class to London for Wimbledon later this month for only 50,000 miles, I'm comfortable saying that you'll be watching tennis on television. If you think you can have whatever you want whenever you want it and never use more than the minimum number of miles, I'd like to talk to you about a bridge purchase in my hometown of Brooklyn.

But if your goal is to maximize your return on investment in the programs and reduce your stress levels, I have a few tips and strategies worth considering. I think it's a sane approach to managing your frequent-flyer plans.

It's Not About the Game

The more you travel, the more you tend to obsess about frequent-flyer programs—and the more you start trying to get more points and miles and trying to game the plans and pile up credits. But frequent-flyer programs should not be driving your travel decisions. Convenience of schedule, reliability of service, and price are all more important than the specifics of a carrier's frequent-flyer program. And the quality of an airline's alliance network—in other words, a carrier and its flight partners—may now be more important than the frequent-flyer plan too.

Don't Be Bribed

Airlines now sell more miles to non-flight partners—credit-card issuers, retailers, communications firms—than they issue to flyers. And the reason why third-party firms buy miles is to convince you to change your buying patterns. It's almost always a mistake to let yourself be bribed. You can never "win" the game if you buy items only to earn the miles. There's nothing wrong with aligning your credit cards, retail purchases, and other buying with your chosen frequent-flyer program, of course, but you need to know the cost of those "free" miles. One example: taking an airline credit card for a 25,000-mile sign-up bonus. At 18 percent interest, you'll pay more than $1,000 of finance charges in a year if you charge just $10,000. Yet that 25,000-mile bonus is likely to net you a ticket worth as little as $400. Needless to say, you'd be much better off with a lower-interest card than that mileage bonus.

Don't Split the Baby

All that said, frequent-flyer programs pay off best when you accumulate enough miles for high-value awards (usually international premium-class seats). It does make sense to concentrate your spending with as many of a frequent-flyer program's partners as possible. If everything else is equal, taking a credit card with a proprietary miles plan or "cash back" program probably isn't tactically sound as taking an airline credit card. Dining programs and retail shopping plans tied to frequency schemes can help you build miles fast. One example: My wife and I recently purchased a $1,500 patio set. I originally planned to buy it at the retailer's shop. But since the chain participates in my frequent-flyer program's shopping plan, I ordered online via the airline's link and earned 6,000 bonus miles. Same item, same price, even same delivery day.

Click here for more tips on making the most of your frequent-flyer miles.