Understanding Airline Alliances (2021)

Award Ticket Strategies, Award Tickets 101: The Basics

If you want to understand how to book international award travel, you need to start by understanding airline alliances.

Airline alliances allow you to use US-based frequent flyer programs to book award tickets on many different foreign airlines. But perhaps more importantly, they let you take advantage of foreign frequent flyer programs. Using these foreign programs lets you take full advantage of your transferable credit card points and can provide an easier path to elite status.

For example, you can use United Airlines miles for frequent flyer tickets on Lufthansa, ANA, Air Canada, Singapore Airlines, and any of over two dozen other airlines. But you can also earn tons of Membership Rewards points by signing up for American Express credit cards and then transfer those points to Singapore Airlines to book United Airlines' frequent flyer tickets, often for fewer miles than if you used United's own program.

United Airlines is one of the 26 members of the Star Alliance, which was founded by United Airlines, Air Canada, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), and Thai Airways. They are probably the best alliance for flights to Europe and Africa, especially because several Star Alliance programs let you avoid fuel surcharges on those routes.

Aegean Airlines

Air Canada

Air China

Air India

Air New Zealand

All Nippon Airways (ANA)

Asiana Airlines

Austrian Airlines

Avianca (Columbia)

Brussels Airlines

Copa Airlines (Panama)

Croatia Airlines

EgyptAir

Ethiopian Airlines

EVA Air (Taiwan)

LOT Polish Airlines

Lufthansa (Germany)

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS)

Shenzhen Airlines

Singapore Airlines

South African Airways

Swiss International

TAP Portugal

Thai Airways

Turkish Airlines

United

Delta Airlines is one of the 19 members of SkyTeam, which was founded by Delta, Air France, Korean Airlines, and Aeromexico. They are probably the best alliance for flights to Asia, due to their large number of Asian-based airlines.

Aeroflot (Russia)

Aerolineas Argentinas

Aeromexico

Air Europa (Spain)

Air France

Alitalia (Italy)

China Airlines

China Eastern Airlines

Czech Airlines

Delta Air Lines

Garuda Indonesia

Kenya Airways

KLM (Netherlands)

Korean Air

Middle East Airlines

Saudia

TAROM (Romania)

Vietnam Airlines

Xiamen Airlines

American Airlines and Alaska Airlines are two of the 14 members of Oneworld, which was founded by American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, and Qantas. They are probably the best alliance for flights to South America. However, they are often a difficult alliance for flights to Europe because those flights are dominated by British Airways and its unavoidably high fuel surcharges.

Alaska Airlines

American Airlines

British Airways

Cathay Pacific (Hong Kong)

Finnair

Iberia Airlines

Japan Airlines

Malaysia Airlines

Qantas (Australia)

Qatar

Royal Air Maroc

Royal Jordanian

SriLankan Airlines

S7 Airlines (Russia)

All the alliance's airlines and frequent flyer programs work seamlessly together

The big three airline alliances let you redeem and earn miles with any of the alliance's airlines, making your points and miles much more valuable.

You can freely mix and match the airlines in the alliance as part of a single award ticket. For example, let’s say you want to fly to Bangkok. You could fly United Airlines to Chicago, ANA (All Nippon Airways) from Chicago to Tokyo, and then Thai Airways from Tokyo to Bangkok on a single one-way award ticket, because each of these airlines are part of the Star Alliance. But you couldn’t substitute American Airlines for the Chicago leg, because they are part of Oneworld.

The ability to combine flights from different airlines greatly increases the possibilities for award travel between any two locations.

You can use any of the alliance’s frequent flyer programs to book award tickets on any of the alliance's airlines. For example, to book the Star Alliance flights to Bangkok, you could use United Miles you earned from the United credit card, Air Canada miles you transferred from Amex, or miles from any of the other Star Alliance frequent flyer programs.
Generally, the same award space is available to all the alliance’s frequent flyer programs. If award seats are available, you can usually book them with frequent flyer points from any of the alliance’s programs. You generally don’t need to worry about Air Canada having access to an award seat, but United not having access. There are two exceptions. First, some airlines provide some additional award space to their own frequent flyer program members. Second, you sometimes can’t book first class (or premium economy) tickets using a partner program. But even then, if one partner has access to award seats, so will all the other partners.
Different frequent flyer programs require different numbers of miles to fly on exactly the same trip. Each airline has its own award chart. The number of miles you need for an award ticket depends on the frequent flyer program you are using, not on the airlines you are flying. For example, for the exact same flights to Bangkok, United Airlines will charge 88,000 United miles round trip, while ANA will only charge 80,000 ANA miles, and Thai Airways will charge 100,000 Royal Orchid miles. Obviously, you can try to take advantage of whichever program offers the best deal for your trip. 2. Choose the Least Expensive Frequent Flyer Program for Your Ticket.

When you convert credit card points to airline miles to book award tickets, you’ll often need to use “foreign” frequent flyer programs. Your options for transferring credit card points directly to the major US airlines can be limited. Often, your only option is to transfer your points to a foreign airline that you may never actually fly. For example, you might transfer your points to ANA to book an award flight on United airlines. But as discussed above, these programs can work just as well for booking your award ticket and may even require fewer points.

When you fly, you can “credit” your miles to any frequent flyer program in the alliance. For example, you can earn Singapore Airlines miles for a flight you take with United Airlines or vice versa. In the same way that you can take advantage of whichever program offers the best deals for redeeming your miles, you can take advantage of whichever program offers the best deals for earning miles. The Best Frequent Flyer Programs for Earning Miles from Your Flights.
If you achieve elite status with any frequent flyer program, you'll get benefits when you fly with any of the alliance's other airlines. Depending on the alliance and your status level, you'll get priority treatment at the airport, access to airport lounges, free checked bags, and sometimes even preferred seating—on every one of the Alliance's airlines. However, business and first-class upgrades are generally limited to the airline's own elite members. Benefits of Elite Frequent Flyer Status.

Receive Partial Benefits with Each Alliance's "Connecting" Partners

Star Alliance and Oneworld have introduced "connecting" partners programs, where you can get limited alliance benefits on a few additional airlines. At this time, the Star Alliance Connecting Partner are Thai Smile Airways and Juneyao Airlines (China); and the only Oneworld Connect Partner is Fiji Airways.

Some of your alliance elite status benefits will be honored on these additional airlines. For example, with Oneworld, any priority check-in and boarding benefits will be honored. With Star Alliance, any benefits with the connecting partner are only available if you are also flying at least one leg with an Alliance partner.
The connecting partner will be a partner of at least some, but not all, of the alliance members. You'll get the typical benefits available through these types of partnerships, but only with the participating frequent flyer programs, not with every program in the alliance.

Other than the potential for receiving some of your alliance elite status benefits, connecting partners don't work like other airlines in the alliance. Instead, they work essentially the same way as the other non-Alliance partners of the participating partner airlines. For example, Fiji Airways, the Oneworld Connect partner, has essentially the same relationship with American Airlines, as American Airlines' non-alliance partners, like Air Tahiti Nui.

Other partner programs work slightly differently than the big alliances

Most frequent flyer programs have a set of airline partners, either in-addition to, or instead of, belonging to Star Alliance, SkyTeam, or Oneworld. These partner programs work slightly different than a traditional airline alliance.

Just like with an alliance, you can use your miles to book flights with any partner airline. For example, you can use Emirates miles to book flights on any of their many partner airlines. Occasionally, there are additional restrictions, where you can only book a subset of the partner’s flights.
Unlike an alliance, you can’t necessarily combine flights on different partners as part of the same award ticket. Some frequent flyer programs allow you to combine flights with multiple non-alliance partners, some don’t. You can always count on being able to combine a frequent flyer’s program’s own flights with a partner’s flights, but not necessarily with flights from multiple partners.
Unlike an alliance, you can’t necessarily use one partner’s miles to book a flight on another partner. Just because Emirates partners with two different airlines, doesn’t mean that they are partners with each other. With a traditional alliance, all the members are partners with each other, so you can use any airline’s program to book tickets on any other airline.
Like a traditional alliance, you can earn miles for flights with any of the frequent flyer program’s partners. For example, you can earn Emirates miles every time you fly with one of their partners. But as with redeeming miles, you can’t necessarily earn miles with one partner from a flight you took with another partner.
Unlike a traditional alliance, you'll usually get no benefits from your elite status, when you fly on a partner airline. Unlike the alliances, individual airlines don't provide elite status benefits for members of their partner's frequent flyer programs.