Did you notice on Day 17 – Award Charts lesson, I mentioned using British Airways Avios to book an American Airlines flight? Let’s now dig into airline alliances.

What are airline alliances?

Let’s say you want to visit Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. There are no US airlines that fly to Ho Chi Minh City airport and you live in Knoxville, TN where there are only a few airlines including United, American, and Delta. United can fly you from Knoxville to Chicago (major United hub). United can then fly you across the pacific ocean to a major city such Singapore. You made it to Singapore but still need to get to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. This is why airline alliances were created – to get to you almost any destination in the world.

United is a member of the Star Alliance along with 27 other airlines. Singapore Airlines is also a Star Alliance member and has direct flights from Singapore to Ho Chi Minh City. Instead of you having to purchase a separate ticket on Singapore, United is able to book you directly on the Singapore Airlines flight as part of your United ticket. Also if someone from Singapore wanted to visit Knoxville, Singapore Airlines is able to fly that person to the US and include United flights to get that person to their final destination.

In addition to one-stop tickets and reservations, airline alliances allow for a one-stop check-in, seat assignments, boarding passes, and baggage handling to final destination. You are also able to earn miles on different partner members (i.e. you purchased a Air New Zealand flight, you can credit the miles earned from that ticket to United if you wanted to).

How many alliances are there?

There are three main airline alliances: Star Alliance, Oneworld, and Skyteam.

Star Alliance

Star Alliance is the largest with 28 airlines (27 members + 1 connecting partner, Juneyao Airlines) that serve over 1,300 airports. While Star Alliance has good coverage all over the world, it is very strong for Europe and Asia travel. United is the United States member of the Star Alliance.

Skyteam

Star Alliance is the second largest with 20 airlines that serve over 1,000 airports. Delta is the United States member of Skyteam.

Oneworld

Finally, Oneworld is the smallest of the three with 14 airlines that serve ~1,000 airports. Oneworld has very good coverage in South America. Aer Lingus (Ireland) will be rejoining Oneworld sometime in 2017. American Airlines is the United States member of Oneworld.

Putting it all together

Welltraveledmile.com put together an amazing flow chart of the different airline alliances along with which flexible currencies (Citi Thank You Points, Chase Ulimate Rewards, Amex Membership Rewards, & Amex SPG Points) transfer to which airlines.

Non Alliances

In addition to the three major alliances, many other airlines while not members of an alliance have partnerships with different airlines. It can get really confusing quickly.

As an example, Alaska Airlines has partnered with 14 different airlines so you can travel to over 900 destinations around the world. So you can use Alaska Airline miles on American Airline flights as well as Korean Air flights. The confusing part is that Alaska Airlines has different award charts for each of the 14 different partner airlines. You can check to see the different options at their website.

Alaska Airlines Partner Airlines

As you can see it can get very confusing to try to learn each and every airline’s award chart. As a beginner, it’s best to focus on the airline award charts that are transferrable from easy to obtain flexible currencies. I’ll show you some helpful tools for finding the best use of miles.

Need to Knows

Airlines created ‘Alliances’ to simplify worldwide travel for consumers
There are three main alliances – Skyteam, OneWorld, and Star Alliance
While not all airlines are a part of an alliance, some have partnerships with other airlines

Day 19 – Airline Alliances & Partners