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based on ease of usage for member award travel with Star Alliance, SkyTeam and Oneworld? Of course, destination is the main determining factor, but beyond that....do you have experiences in ease or difficulties in securing seats and class of service (discounting obvious seasonal demands)?
Tough choices, but I guess Star Alliance would have to be my best choice, since I have so many Continental OnePass points that have been absorbed into United's Mileage Plus program. I'm busy stacking miles right now, so I haven't attempted to use any award tickets in more than a year. Also, I like the fact Star Alliance has almost twice as many members as the other two.Quote:
Originally Posted by omegaet
Over all, I think most of these award programs are suck deals and I'll admit I'm one of biggest suckers to continue chasing miles.
Despite the umbilical cord to Delta, I have very little choice as a consumer in my home market. I have US Air miles I am keeping alive from nearly 20 yrs ago. Still pretty useless in this area.
I earn my Skymiles from non-air sources, so I keep my alliances close to my needs.
I like the AA/LAN alliance. Seems good for seats, etc. I do use the USAir/Luftansa alliance however whenever I call about free seats, they seem confused! So.....I guess it is just hit or miss.
Star Alliance, One World and Sky Team work for us for European Connections. I have never had a problem getting FF seats on AA to Europe, although, lately, flying into Munich is more difficult. AA does not fly there, so we are either going through London and BA or Madrid and Iberia. United gets us through DC direct into Munich, but need to accumulate more miles. Delta also gets us into Munich from the US. Got some USAir miles, but they keep upping the ante for a free ticket....
I started to answer your question, then I reread it and I have a different answer. Let me start over by saying I first thought you were asking if I, as a member, of one of the Star Alliance, Sky Team or Oneworld airlines have had any experience booking award travel.Quote:
Originally Posted by omegaet
Then I reread your question and I now have a feeling you are asking if I have had experience booking seats with a member of Star Alliance, Sky Team or Oneworld.
As an example, my family has or had a large number of OnePass miles with Continental. Back in the pre-United days, we used OnePass miles to book award seats on KLM.
If I have made a correct interpretation of your question, then we have had success but within the past year or so it has become more and more difficult to even book award seats within the primary frequently flier program, much less trying to book anything on a member carrier.
I hope I correctly understood your question.
Yes, kapper, you correctly interpreted my convoluted question.
At least for us, it seems like with the passage of time and the consolidations of airlines, has introduced more and more challenges to secure award seats aboard alliance partners.
We are working on just such a situation right now and although somewhat complicated (due to restrictive travel dates and hotel expiration dates), there is hope.
The absorption of Continental's OnePass into United's Mileage Plus has caused us some minor anxiety, but thanks to helpful res agents at the alliance partner (a foreign carrier), we may have solved the riddle and actually have the opportunity to use Saver Awards rather than Standard Awards. If the submission goes through, we are looking at saving a substantial (think thousands) amount of miles.
So, we were just wondering if others in the Lounge/Community are seeing similar situations in their award travels?
I have always had FF miles with Continental and before the merger and if I had enough miles which is very infrequent, I was able to upgrade fairly easy - never had enough miles to actually get a free RT flight. Since the merger, it is much more difficult - actually had enough miles to upgrade for November flight to CR but no upgrade availability - even this far ahead, plus with the cutback in flights, there were not any good flight times to fit my schedule so we are flying to CR in November on American (1st time using this airline so we will see how it goes) I joined thier FF program just in case a switch to a new airline is in order. I have discovered that it is harder to use miles now and the fees are higher - so I voted that it is a hoax!
I'm actually stacking some AAdvantage Miles with American in hopes that they work their way out of bankruptcy and I can use them to fly to Argentina.
I would be willing to buy a coach ticket and try to upgrade to Business using miles.
Lot of stuff has to come together for this deal to happen.
Hi M....Look at flying into Santiago instead of BA. It seems AA has a nice supply to SCL vs EZE. We are looking at doing this again next year.