In our first post in this series, we introduced you to AwardWallet, a mileage account storage web tool, and how to sign up for several mileage and points programs. Now, in our second training exercise, we’d like to introduce you to a major concept of booking awards with your favorite airlines: the partner.
Part I: What Is A Partner?
We all have our favorite airline or hotel that we (hopefully) earn points and miles with. And, you are always welcome to use your hard earned award tickets with that particular company. However, many do not realize that they can earn and use miles and points with ‘partner airlines,’ which may offer you better service, better flights to your destination, and the ability to use less miles on the same award ticket!
Part II: The Airline Alliance
The most ‘mainstream’ of these partnerships is called ‘the Airline Alliance.’ There are three major ones worldwide: Star Alliance, oneworld, and SkyTeam. These three feature partner airlines that can book paid flights and awards within their alliance, using your preferred airline’s miles! So, if you were a United flyer, you would be in Star Alliance, and could book Lufthansa flights to Europe on miles instead of United. We’ll go into each alliance in detail in later posts, but here is a listing of each alliance’s member airlines:
Star Alliance
The Star Alliance Logo
Adria
Aegean
Air Canada
Air China
Air New Zealand
ANA
Asiana Airlines
Austrian
Avianca
brussels airlines
CopaAirlines
Croatia Airlines
Egyptair
Ethiopian
EvaAir
LOT Polish Airlines
Lufthansa
SAS Scandinavian Airlines
Shenzhen Airlines
Singapore Airlines
South African Airways
Swiss
TAP Portugal
Thai
Turkish Airlines
United
oneworld
The oneworld logo
airberlin
American Airlines
British Airways
Cathay Pacific
Finnair
Iberia
Japan Airlines
LAN
TAM
Malaysian Airlines
Qantas
Qatar
Royal Jordanian
S7
SriLankan
US Airways
SkyTeam
The SkyTeam Logo
AeroFlot
Aerolíneas Argentinas
Aeromexico
Air Europa
Air France
Alitalia
China Airlines
China Eastern
China Southern
Czech Airlines
Delta Air Lines
Garuda Indonesia
Kenya Airways
KLM
Korean Air
Middle East Airlines
Saudia
TAROM
Vietnam Airlines
Xiamen Airlines
Part III: Individual Airline Partners
Where it gets confusing (and in turn, where you can find some ‘sweet spots’ for award redemptions), is the individual airline partners. You see, some of the airlines that you see listed above you have partnerships with other non-member airlines, that will allow you to ‘earn and burn’ miles between the two of them. One airline that you won’t see on the lists above is Alaska Airlines, which has partnerships with several airlines listed here in both oneworld and SkyTeam. The lists are too numerous to list here for each individual airlines, so we will have a post for each airline in the coming weeks (what am I getting myself into?).
Conclusion
We hope that this clears up some confusion about airline partnerships. The airline alliances are important tools to utilize when booking awards, as I refuse to fly an American airline overseas anymore. The products for some of the other airlines are just vastly superior. What’s your preferred airline or airline alliance?
In Training Exercise #3, we’ll discuss credit cards: how they can get you quick points and how they can transfer to your favorite award program!
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The post Training Exercise #2: Know Your Partners appeared first on The Travel Playbook.