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 …

Continental has announced that they would follow the new United Award Charts from June 15. This also includes allowing one-way awards. While the switch of Award Charts is not surprising given their smooth merger progress, I hadn’t expected Continental to allow one-way awards so soon. They haven’t said whether they would allow one-way award on partners too; it would be awesome if they did. Continental has three airline partners not yet shared by United – Eva Air, Kingfisher and Virgin Atlantic. Partner one-way awards on these airlines would be lucrative, …

It seems to be something everyone does, so why not me. But just to be different and in honor of 2001, I am listing my top 11 articles, instead of top 10. These are listed in order of the hits they got. So, you my readers voted with your mouse-clicks. I thank each and everyone of you who read my blog. I will continue to provide interesting and useful content in 2011 too. Enjoy.

All about Upgrades – Part I
Economics of Airline Miles – Part V (Is it all worth it?)
Economics …

Virgin Galactic is soon to start Commercial space flights. The Virgin group already has multiple airlines it owns and operates, including:

Virgin Atlantic
Virgin Blue
Virgin America
V Australia

Each has it’s own mileage program, but Sir Branson has given indications that he wants these airlines of his to get together and from an alternate alliance, with mileage earning and redemption across all Virgin airlines and possibly other partners. It only seems natural that they would add Virgin Galactic to the mix, but I am probably indulging in some wishful thinking.
Oh, the miles:
For one, …

Here we go. I found some more beautiful pictures of the Virgin Atlantic 747 aircraft with the new Harry Potter theme park livery (click on link to read my original article on this topic). Both pictures posted here are from photographers who shared them on Virgin Atlantic’s Facebook page. Enjoy…

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The ‘Chosen One’ has chosen his mode of air travel. He is partnering with Sir Branson and his airline – Virgin Atlantic. Did Harry Potter finally decide to hang up his dusty broom in favor of jet travel? Is Sir Branson not afraid of getting in the bad books of ‘He-who-must-not-be-named’?
I think having the new Harry Potter theme park logo on Virgin Atlantic’s 747 livery is way cool. Here are some photos form Virgin Atlantic’s Facebook page. More photos can be found here on Flickr.

The Harry Potter theme park – …

 
Southwest, AirTran, JetBlue, Ryan Air (Europe), IndiGo (India) – these are all low cost airlines that are focussed on giving cheap airfares with no frills. One of the frills they do not offer is a decent Frequent Flyer program. In some cases there is no program at all. I hence do not fly them. As I mentioned in my article on Maximizing Airline Mile earnings (Part 3 in my series on Economics of Airline Miles), if you have a goal to maximize the airline miles you earn, you should only …