Blog 25: 03/21/2023: Award Miles Tips!
Hi everyone! I thought today I would share how to maximize your value with award miles in the Star Alliance. While One World and Sky Team, the other two airline alliances, have similar perks, the Star Alliance, being the biggest such alliance and most popular of the three for 2020-2022, offers the most benefits and, as the saying goes, bang for your buck.
United Airlines MileagePlus Program logo
- All Rights Reserved, copyright United Airlines Inc.
Air Canada’s AEROPLAN
Frequent Flyer program of Air Canada
All Rights Reserved, copyright AEROPLAN Air Canada
Miles & More Program by Lufthansa Group
All Rights Reserved, copyright Lufthansa Group
We’ll take United Airlines’ MileagePlus award miles for example but to clarify, any mileage program in the Star Alliance network works equally well, from Air Canada’s Aeroplan miles, to Lufthansa’s Miles & More award miles.
All 28 Star Alliance member airlines participate in United’s MileagePlus program to a certain degree; this isn’t as ominous as it may sound as miles can be earned on United Airlines flights and redeemed on virtually any Star Alliance airline. The only caveat is fair class, as some airlines have restrictions on what type of award travel you can book.
Participating Airlines include: (in alphabetical order) - this list does not include code-sharing airlines which alternate on a yearly basis.
Star Alliance official logo, traditionally the logo has a black background. Gold status members have the Star Alliance logo on their tickets, etc, in gold instead of silver in Star Alliance livery
Avianca (low-cost carrier and the flag carrier of Colombia)
Aegean (flag carrier of Greece)
Aer Lingus (flag carrier of Ireland)
Air Canada (flag carrier of Canada)
Air China (flag carrier of the People’s Republic of China)
Air Dolomiti (Italian regional carrier and subsidiary of Lufthansa)
Air India (flag carrier of India)
Air New Zealand (flag carrier of New Zealand)
All Nippon Airways (largest airline in Japan and the only 5-star airlines, not to be confused with Japan Airlines)
Asiana Airlines (South Korea’s 2nd largest airline, headquartered in Seoul)
Austrian Airlines (flag carrier of Austria and another subsidiary of Lufthansa Group)
Azul Brazilian Airlines (Brazilian airline, 2nd largest airline headquartered in Sao Paulo)
Brussels Airlines (flag carrier of Belgium and subsidiary of Lufthansa Group)
Cape Air (US regional carrier headquartered in Hyannis, Massachusetts, predominantly serving the northeast but also offering flight into the Midwest as far as eastern Montana)
Copa Airlines (flag carrier of Panama)
Croatia Air (state-owned flag carrier of Croatia)
Edelweiss Air (sister-airline of and owned wholly by Swiss International and another subsidiary of Lufthansa Group)
Eurowings (European {German} regional airline headquartered in Dusseldorf, formerly German Wings, wholly owned by Lufthansa Group, seeing a pattern?)
EgyptAir (state-owned flag carrier of Egypt)
Ethiopian Airlines (state-owned flag carrier of Ethiopia)
EVA Air (one of two largest airlines in Taiwan)
Hawaiian Airlines (largest operator of flights to and from Hawaii)
Juneyao Airlines (one of three PRC Airlines that are members of the Star Alliance, rarely travels outside China)
LOT Polish Airlines (flag carrier of Poland)
Lufthansa (largely state-owned flag carrier of the Federal Republic of Germany, parent company of the Lufthansa Group)
Scandinavian Airlines System, or SAS (flag carrier of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark)
Shenzhen Airlines (headquartered in Guangdong, China)
Silver Airlines (US regional airline headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida)
Singapore Airlines (world’s best airline 5 times in a row, flag carrier of Singapore)
South African Airways (flag carrier of South Africa)
SWISS International Air Lines (flag carrier of Switzerland, wholly owned by Lufthansa Group)
TAP Portugal (state-owned flag carrier of Portugal)
Thai Airways (flag carrier of the Kingdom of Thailand)
Turkish Airways (flag carrier of the Republic of Turkey, headquartered in Istanbul)
United 737-800 and Lufthansa 747-800i, both Star Alliance member airlines
Earning miles with one airline of the Star Alliance means you can use those miles as award miles on other member airlines. Simply go to your airline of choice’s website and book through that airline on your desired airline’s ticket option.
See you next time on Brooke in the Air!
