The number one frustration with airline miles is that after you’ve racked up lots of miles on an airline, there are no cheap mileage awards available for when you want to go.
The problem stems from the fact that when looking for mileage tickets most websites don’t tell you that you have other airline alliance options.
The real solution that needs to be implemented is an alliance wide award search tool.
The only thing that I know of that currently comes close is ANA’s Star Alliance wide mileage search.
Until then you have a few work-arounds:
1. Call up each partner airline.
2. Join the mileage program of the partner airline that you wish to check and you’ll have online access to their inventory.
3. Call up the mileage desk of the airline that you have miles on and have them check alliance partner availability.(It’s extremely hard to find an agent who can competently check this)
Another caveat is that many airlines also have earning and redemption possibilities with airlines not in their alliance, so be sure to look up on each airline’s website to know what those are as well!
Below is a list of the 3 global alliances, and their primary members.
Star Alliance:
Air Canada
Air New Zealand
ANA
Asiana
Austrian
BMI
Lot Polish Airlines
Lufthansa
SAS Scandinavian Airlines
Singapore Airlines
South African Airways
Spannair
SWISS
TAP Portugal
THAI
United Airlines
US Airways
Oneworld:
American Airlines
British Airways
Cathay Pacific
Finnair
Iberia
JAL-Japan Airlines
Lan
Malev
Qantas
Royal Jordanian
SkyTeam:
Aeroflot
AeroMexico
Air France/KLM
Alitalia
Continental Airlines
Czech Airlines
Delta Airlines
Korean Air
Northwest Airlines
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6 Comments On "The Key To Being Able To Use Your Miles: Alliances!"
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i think aerolineas argentinas & el-al are connected to onewolrd in some way or another regarding using/redeemnig miles.
who is air india with???
Air india is with no one, and aerolineas also with spanair. It is ELAL that has some connections to oneworld. They are partners with Qantas and American, and codeshare partners with Iberia too. Elal are also partners with SAA and Delta, and have codeshare agreements with Swiss, Austrian, LOT and Delta, which means they have some connection to all 3 alliances.
with dell…. and customer service……
dan could you post full list of alliance members? interestingly delta lets yoget award tickets (usually with restrictions on when) on more airlines than you mentioned in the skyteam list.
Dan can you tell us wich alliance (if any) elal is in? and what has a better mileage program united or american airways.