The Airline world is made up of three alliances:

Star Alliance
SkyTeam
OneWorld

Understanding the alliances and the airlines that make them up, and which airlines do not participate in an alliance, is key to maximizing miles and status. What alliances allow you to do is pick one airline per alliance and earn miles on that one airline’s frequent flier program no matter which airline in the alliance you fly. That way you can maximize miles. Airlines not only give redeemable miles but also status miles across alliance partners, so this also maximizes Elite …

Don’t know if I succeeded in making this post’s title sound like something out of the tabloids. But, the whole off-again, on-again relationship between Star Alliance and Air India is truly one for the tabloids. (Sorry no paparazzi photos of Air India in a compromising position. They are having trouble paying their fuel bills though…). The net-net is that Air India does not have its act anywhere near to being together but Star Alliance sees India as too lucrative a market to let some bureaucratic failures trip up the potential …

That gives me some great benefits, such as free unlimited domestic upgrades, Exit row seats when I do not get upgraded, automatic Economy+ for when I don’t get the exit row, free checked bags and most importantly, Star Gold level on Star Alliance, for all my non-United travel. … My Balance: 50,970 – 5,000 = 45,970 Make a list of all other sources that earn you miles and see how many will come in for sure.

This has been the year of changes. We have seen so many changes this year; I have seriously starting to forget what the situation was last year. The latest changes to United Mileage Plus (MP)and Continental One Pass (OP) have been surreptitiously introduced. However it is difficult to creep past the hawk-eye of frequent fliers.
Various fare classes on Swiss (LX) and Lufthansa (LH) now earn lesser EQMs (elite qualifying miles) and RDMs (redeemable miles). The details:
Swiss (LX)

L and K: 100% ® 0%
P: 0% ® 100% (MP) , 150% (OP) (LX …

By now, you probably already know about the new changes to Mileage plus, effective from 2012. In case you don’t, it’s good to gloss over them at the related Milepoint thread and Gary’s excellent commentary.

I am simply amazed at the changes. They are purely the work of a genius. Let us call him/her ‘anti-Joker’. Do I hear you asking why such a name? Well, my ‘inside sources’ informed me, this ‘anti-Joker’ asked all categories of United flyers ‘Why so Happy?’ and then made sure they leave disgruntled. I have ‘recorded’ …

Gary calls US Airways the official consolidator of Star Alliance premium class seats. Rightly so, their miles can be often purchased at discounts. In June they had an offer for purchasing miles with 100% at ~1.4 cents each. The offer is back again, until 15 September.
The two caveats are that you have to buy miles in multiples of 10K and 100K is the maximum miles you can buy. 100K is not enough for premium class travel to Africa, South Pacific, Middle East and parts of Asia. However, I hope most …

Yesterday was indeed a sad day for India and Indian Commercial Aviation. As Flying with Fish has been predicting on his blog for a few days and finally confirmed yesterday, Air India has been booted from Star Alliance before they could even formally join. The dropping of Air India was done three and a half years after Air India was invited and was still unable to fulfill the basic requirements required by Star Alliance to be a member of the worlds largest Airline Alliance. Fish does a great job documenting …

Shenzhen Airlines, a primarily domestic Chinese Airline is set to join Star Alliance. The announcement came today morning on Star Alliance’s Facebook page. They expect Shenzhen to fully join the alliance by late 2012.
Recently, there has been a race between airlines to expand partners in China. China Eastern and Southern were taken up by Skyteam; OneWorld is actively looking for partners. And now, this announcement by Star Alliance. I have never flown Shenzhen but they don’t seem to have a good reputation as a carrier. While, I don’t trust Skytrax …

As Air India progresses on its ‘final approach’ to become a member of the Star Alliance, it brings to an end (if they do actually make this July-end deadline) of the longest any airline has ever taken to join an Alliance. This long drawn out path to Allianceship, if I may, has further tarnished Air India’s already not-so-great image. I personally have mixed feelings about Air India. In full disclosure, I have only flown Air India on an international trip on one round trip between the US and India AND …

Air India’s (AI) official mascot is ‘Maharaja’ which translates to the great king/prince in English. Probably that is why Star Alliance has treated AI in a princely fashion. AI has been trying to join Star Alliance since 2007. Since then, the joining deadlines have been postponed time and again to accommodate the sluggish ‘king’. Finally, tired of the ‘lazy’ king, Star has announced a final deadline of 31July 2011.
On its website, Air India recently announced that they have met the Minimum Joining Requirements (MJR) for joining the alliance. This was …