DAY 13 - The 3 Airline Alliances, Their Hubs, and How to Search Award Space

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I will devote one post each to the seven award programs I feel are most valuable to you, as a beginner. However, there are some general rules and such that are broad enough to talk about before delving into the specifics of an airline's frequent flyer program.

What are airline alliances?

Simply, an airline alliance exists between two or more airlines to provide a network of connectivity for the convenience of booking awards internationally. 

Alliances do this by using something called "code sharing." If you have ever flown on a KLM plane, but the plane was marketed as Delta flight number #xxx, that is a code share. KLM will market on its own website its own KL# while Delta will show DL#. This is so that you, flying Delta from the US to Amsterdam, can book your ticket wholly on Delta, and have one itinerary and confirmation code, without needing to book separate reservations.

Why does this matter? 

If you are looking to go to an international destination, you will likely be booking yourself on a carrier that isn't the actual airline where you've earned your frequent flyer miles. You can always book flights using the carrier with which you've earned the miles, or, you can book a seat on a carrier within the alliance.

To make it easy for you to reference, I will list each of the big three in alphabetical order, save for the major US carrier will be listed first. In parenthesis is each airline's major hub cities. These are the cities which are used as the gateway, or transfer point where you would switch flights and/or airlines.

ONEWORLD

American Airlines (Dallas-Fort Worth, New York-JFK, Los Angeles, Chicago-O’Hare, Miami AND Former US Airways hubs of Charlotte, Phoenix, Philadelphia)

airberlin (Berlin, Dusseldorf)

British Airways (London-Heathrow, London-Gatwick)

Cathay Pacific (Hong Kong)

Finnair (Helsinki)

Iberia (Madrid, Barcelona)

Japan Airlines (Tokyo-Haneda, Tokyo-Narita, Osaka, Osaka-Kansai)

LAN (Santiago, Chile; Lima, Peru)

Malaysia Airlines (Kuala Lumpur)

Qantas (Sydney, Melbourne)

Qatar Airways (Doha)

Royal Jordanian (Amman)

S7 Airlines (Moscow-Domodedovo, Novosibirsk)

SriLankan Airlines (Colombo)

TAM Airlines (Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia)

STAR ALLIANCE

United Airlines (Newark, Houston-Intercontinental, Washington-Dulles, Chicago-O’Hare, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Cleveland, Tokyo-Narita, Guam)

Adria Airways (Ljubljana, Slovenia)

Aegean Airlines (Athens, Greece)

Air Canada (Calgary, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver)

Air China (Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai)

Air India (Delhi, Mumbai)

Air New Zealand (Auckland)

ANA (Tokyo-Narita, Tokyo-Haneda, Osaka, Osaka-Kansai)

Asiana Airlines (Seoul-Incheon, Seoul-Gimpo)

Austrian Airlines (Vienna)

Avianca (Bogota, Colombia; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Quito, Ecuador; San Salvador, El Salvador; San Jose, Costa Rica; Lima, Peru)

Brussels Airlines (Brussels, Belgium)

Copa (Panama City)

Croatia Airlines (Zagreb)

EgyptAir (Cairo)

Ethiopian Airlines (Addis Ababa)

EVA Air (Taipei, Taiwan)

LOT Polish Airlines (Warsaw)

Lufthansa (Frankfurt, Munich, Dusseldorf, Berlin)

Scandinavian Airlines (Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm)

Shenzhen Airlines (Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Nanjing)

Singapore Airlines (Singapore)

South African Airways (Johannesburg)

Swiss International Air Lines (Zurich)

TAP Portugal (Lisbon)

Thai Airways International (Bangkok)

Turkish Airlines (Istanbul-Ataturk)

SKY TEAM

Delta Airlines (Atlanta, New York-JFK, New York-LaGuardia, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Cincinnati, Salt Lake City, Memphis, Detroit, Amsterdam, Tokyo-Narita, Paris-Charles de Gaulle)

Aeroflot (Moscow-Sheremetyevo)

Aerolineas Argentinas (Buenos Aires-Ezeiza, Buenos Aires-Aeroparque)

Aeroméxico (Mexico City)

Air Europa (Madrid)

Air France (Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris-Orly, Lyon, Toulouse-Blagnac, Marseille, Nice)

Alitalia (Rome-Fiumicino)

China Airlines (Taipei, Kaohsiung)

China Eastern Airlines (Kunming, Shanghai-Pudong, Shanghai-Hongqiao, Xi’an)

China Southern Airlines (Beijing-Capital, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Urumqi)

Czech Airlines (Prague)

Garuda Indonesia (Jakarta, Bali)

Kenya Airways (Nairobi)

KLM (Amsterdam)

Korean Air (Seoul-Incheon, Seoul-Gimpo)

Middle East Airlines (Beirut, Lebanon)

Saudia (Dammam, Jeddah, Medinah, Ryiadh)

TAROM (Bucharest, Romania)

Vietnam Airlines (Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City)

Xiamen Airlines (Xiamen, Fuzhou, Hangzhou)

Some airlines do not have an alliance.

Some notable examples include:

Alaska Airlines

Southwest

JetBlue

Frontier

Hawaiian

Spirit

Allegiant

Virgin (Atlantic, America, and Australia)

Emirates

Etihad

and every other airline I didn't mention here.

As you can see, most low cost airlines aren't part of any alliance. Domestic low cost carriers are meant to be used alone, and mostly within the US. They tend to follow a "point to point" model, meaning they fly routes that tend to go directly to the destination, often serving airports that don't get much love from the major carriers. Underserved routes, smaller out of the city airports and seasonal destinations tend to follow this model. 

Also, there are some major international carriers in this list that aren't part of an alliance. This isn't a bad thing. They usually make one-off code share deals or they might link up with several partners across many alliances. This allows them to be selective, and often they will have niche possibilities that aren't viable with the big 3 alliances. Alaska is a good example of this.

Where do you search award space?

Even though alliances allow airlines to be partners with each other, they don't necessarily do a good job of showing who has space and where for all their partners. Airlines' websites don't show award space for all members of their alliance, so it is usually necessary to use several search engines to completely search an alliance for redeemable space.

Normally, an airline will release award space to all of its partners equally, so if you see Air France award space on Air France's website, then that space is equally bookable with miles from any carrier within Sky Team. Miles earned from multiple carriers in an alliance cannot be pooled together, however. You cannot combine your Delta and Air France points. This is why I recommend you try to credit all your miles to one carrier within each alliance. 

Now, on to searching! 

ONEWORLD

aa.com 

Their search engine has the best calendar, able to show dates for a whole month, color coded by miles needed in one glance. It will show space on flights operated by American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, airberlin, Finnair, Qantas, or British Airways.

ba.com 

Shows nearly all oneworld carriers that American doesn't. If I can’t search aa.com for an airline I'm looking for, and I am searching a direct flight, I search ba.com.

qantas.com.au

If I am searching for a oneworld itinerary that has connections, I use Qantas. BA's search engine does not like connecting flights, and has a hard time piecing together itineraries. 

STAR ALLIANCE

united.com

United lists award space for most Star Alliance carriers, so you should start your award searches here. They are quick and have many partners available.

aeroplan.com

They show more partners than United, and are better at booking funky itineraries.

ana.com

ANA's award search tool is best if you want to confirm award space on a single segment. I believe they have all Star Alliance partners availability, but they do not do connections well. Unfortunately, ANA restricts members from searching availability unless they have miles in their account. Easiest way around this is to transfer some points over from your AmEx Membership Rewards, or SPG account. Only do this if you are seriously planning to be using this tool. Regular SPG members with no status must transfer a minimum of 2,500 points. Gold members  have a 1,500 point transfer minimum, and Platinum members have no minimum. AmEx MR must transfer over a minimum of 1,000.

SKYTEAM

delta.com

They have made some improvements to their calendar search, but it still isn't the best out there. Recently, they've made Aeroflot, Aerolineas Argentinas, Garuda Indonesia, GOL and Vietnam Airlines viewable. That is in addition to the partner availability it already showed on Air France/KLM, Alitalia, China Airlines, China Eastern, China Southern, Korean Air, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia.

airfrance.us

Use this to search other SkyTeam partners not listed above.



Let's say you want to book space on Cathay Pacific using American miles. Because Cathay's flights aren't viewable on AA's calendar, you would need to call AA Reservations to book the ticket. Carriers may charge you a fee of around $35 to book awards not listed on their website. But the reservation agent can book you any itinerary that you saw was available, provided you feed him/her the carrier, flight numbers, and other pertinent info.

I will be detailing each of the major seven carriers and their quirks in more detail in future posts.

I know this was a huge info dump on you, so if you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a message in the comments!


Peace, love and an extra pack of peanuts,

LC