There’s always value in being strategy with the frequent flyer program that you credit your flights to. After all, you want to maximize your ability to earn elite status, and also want to rack up as many miles as possible. With that in mind, I recently got a question from a reader that I figured I’d address more broadly.
If you fly Star Alliance airlines quite a bit, but don’t fly any one airline consistently, what’s the best program to credit to? Let me share some general tips and thoughts, for anyone who might be in this situation (and then I’d love to hear how others approach this). In no particular order…
In this post:
Use the program of the airline you fly most
If there’s a single Star Alliance airline you fly most, it’s generally going to be a best practice to credit your miles to the frequent flyer program of that airline. That’s not always going to be the case, but more often than not, it’s the best value.
Why is that? Well, while alliances offer many reciprocal elite perks, generally the members of a “native” program will get the best perks. For example, some programs might offer upgrade or other perks for members of their own program, while not offering them to members of partner programs.
To give an example in the United States, United has its Economy Plus seating, with extra legroom. This can be reserved for free (with some restrictions) if you have status with United MileagePlus, but not if you have status with a partner program. MileagePlus elite members also receive complimentary first class upgrades, but actually clearing those upgrades is a different story…
Earn Star Alliance Gold status as easily as possible
The major airline alliances all offer alliance-wide perks, like priority check-in, priority boarding, lounge access, and more. In the case of the Star Alliance, the valuable elite tier is Star Alliance Gold. So I tend to think that crediting to a program that can easily earn you Star Alliance Gold is a great strategy.
Note that there’s a big incentive to credit to a program other than United MileagePlus, due to the Star Alliance lounge access policy. Star Alliance Gold members get lounge access on all Star Alliance itineraries, but the one exception is that Star Alliance Gold members through United MileagePlus don’t get United Club access on wholly domestic itineraries.
Now, determining the program that makes it easiest to earn Star Alliance Gold status isn’t necessarily so straightforward. That’s because many programs require you to fly a minimum number of miles (or spend a minimum amount) for flights on the “native” airline, so you can’t earn Star Alliance Gold status exclusively through travel on partner airlines.
Generally you can expect that Star Alliance Gold status requires somewhere around 50,000 elite qualifying miles in a year (for programs that still use such a system). However, there are some programs that make it a bit easier. To give a few examples:
- Turkish Miles&Smiles lets you earn Star Alliance Gold status with just 40,000 elite miles in a year, and status is even valid for two years
- Aegean Miles+Bonus lets you earn Star Alliance Gold status with just 36,000 elite miles in a year, though the major catch is that you need to fly at least six segments on Aegean
- EgyptAir Plus lets you earn Star Alliance Gold status with 60,000 elite miles, though what’s unique is that you can set up a family account, and pool your direct family’s elite miles to your account, which is kind of fun
- Asiana Club lets you earn Star Alliance Gold status with just 40,000 elite miles in two years, which is very compelling, though keep in mind that Korean Air is in the process of acquiring Asiana, at which point the airline will leave Star Alliance
I don’t think there’s a single perfect program, but hopefully the above gives people some ideas. Given Asiana’s merger with Korean Air, I wouldn’t recommend that strategy at this point. Aegean would probably be my preferred program if I’d otherwise fly the number of segments on Aegean (as nice as Greece is, that’s a big “if”). But otherwise I think Turkish is probably the sweet spot in terms of a program that’s fairly easy to use, and also quite lucrative.
While EgyptAir sounds like it could be an appealing option, just manage your expectations when it comes to actually using the program.
Consider points earning rates with different programs
Different frequent flyer programs have vastly different mileage earning rates, so that can be worth keeping in mind, especially if you frequently fly one particular airline in a consistent fare class. The website wheretocredit.com lets you enter your airline and fare code, and then shows you the mileage earning rates across different programs.
So I’d rather credit to a program that awards miles equal to 100% of the distance flown, rather than 25% of the distance flown, for example.
Credit to programs offering valuable & useful points
Another major consideration is that you want to earn mileage currencies that are most valuable to you. The way I see it, there are a few ways to go about this, as not all mileage currencies are created equal (and my valuations reflect that):
- For some people, it could be worth collecting unique mileage currencies that they wouldn’t otherwise easily be able to earn with transferable points currencies; for example, maybe you want to earn Lufthansa Miles & More miles, so that you can redeem for Lufthansa first class awards more than 15 days in advance
- For some people, it could make sense to collect a mileage currency that you can combine with transferable points currencies, so that you can actually get value from the program through redemptions
- While some programs have amazing redemption rates, the actual booking process can be a pain, and there could be restrictions on redemptions, regarding who you can redeem your miles for, etc.
Bottom line
There’s never going to be a “one size fits all” answer as to which frequent flyer program is best. The Star Alliance has lots of great frequent flyer programs, and personally I think there’s value to picking a program that earns you Star Alliance Gold status as quickly as possible.
Even that isn’t so straightforward, though, since programs have different restrictions around earning this status. There aren’t many Star Alliance programs that let you earn status exclusively through travel on partner airlines.
I tend to think that if you don’t want to deal with any airline-specific flying requirements, then Turkish Miles&Smiles probably offers the all-around most practical pathway to Star Alliance Gold (though I’m curious if others have a different take).
What’s your take on the best Star Alliance frequent flyer program for anyone who isn’t loyal to one particular program?
If you're just starting to build status, ruling Asiana out entirely for banking points, maybe this and next year, provided you expect to have a status match within SkyTeam before the merger completes, or have a plan for status matching back into Star Alliance if caught by surprise.
Air China Phoenix Miles. Very easy.
40 segments. With cheapest segment as cheap as 300rmb.
Be, you missed a big one:
Pay attention to EXPIRATION POLICIES.
I pity the fool who stores their miles with Singapore Airlines, for example, seeing as those miles will expire in 36 months with (almost) no way to extend them.
At the very least, an honourable mention goes to Copa Airlines. It offers Star Alliance Gold status after only 40,000 miles. It also appears to require 4 segments flown with Copa of the 35 qualifying segments.
I have a friend who travels from YUL (Montreal) to CTY (Cali) multiple times each year. Now that he has Star Alliance Gold status, he buys Economy Classic tickets and is very nearly always upgraded to Business Class for...
At the very least, an honourable mention goes to Copa Airlines. It offers Star Alliance Gold status after only 40,000 miles. It also appears to require 4 segments flown with Copa of the 35 qualifying segments.
I have a friend who travels from YUL (Montreal) to CTY (Cali) multiple times each year. Now that he has Star Alliance Gold status, he buys Economy Classic tickets and is very nearly always upgraded to Business Class for free. And the upgrade typically happens a day or two before he travels. For people travelling from Canada or the U.S. to Central or South America, I see no better option. And access to AC Maple Leaf and United lounges is a fantastic benefit.
For the LH status miles, does the flight have to be on LH metal, or is enough to be on an LH flight number (E.g TATL on United)?
It needs to be operated by a fully integrated Miles and More airline, which is essentially LH group and a handful of others (such as LO, LG, OU…).
LH flight number is not enough.
HSBC AU Star Alliance credit card is the most easy way to get and maintain Gold status. Basically just spend money and keep Gold. The downside is it is near impossible to get AU credit cards if you are not AU citizen or resident or student.
Been a long *G status holder with TK. I agree that only for the sole purpose of keeping the status it is attractive as it only requires 40k miles in two years without even needing to fly with their own metal.
However, redeeming miles has become much less attractive due to 1) recent devaluation with TK flights, 2) difficulty finding saver awards as the standard rate seems a bit exorbitant and 3) such a...
Been a long *G status holder with TK. I agree that only for the sole purpose of keeping the status it is attractive as it only requires 40k miles in two years without even needing to fly with their own metal.
However, redeeming miles has become much less attractive due to 1) recent devaluation with TK flights, 2) difficulty finding saver awards as the standard rate seems a bit exorbitant and 3) such a pain in the a** redeeming partner awards, despite many sweet spots exhist. Let me elaborate the last point.
To redeem partner awards, you basically need to call their customer care (their website hasn’t worked in years) which for some reason cannot process the tax payments on spot. The agent will always say their sales rep will give you back a call within 24hrs but I have never received such in several attempts. In the end in order for the reservation to not get cancelled, I usually contact the airline’s nearest local office (in my case Tokyo) and thankfully they are prompt in responses, but there is an additional charge of a couple dozen bucks as the “local processing fee”.
I’m now eyeing on other programs that at least still have better generous redemption rates, that could be booked online across other partners.
Remember that not all fare classes qualify for points if you fly one member and accrue on another. Air NZ has many lower fare classes that will not convert to points if you are a member of another scheme.
Ben, I am surprised you haven't commented on the massive status match promotion from Star Alliance for all SAS Eurobonus members. It is possible to status match to Air Canada until December 2025. Pretty novel news, to be honest :)
Ihave even bought an upgrade on United to find out at boarding -I am demoted////
I am most pleased with TAP Miles&Go and will only give it up when it gets absorbed my Lufthansa's Miles&More, for there it is impossible to keep a Gold status.
United for status, Aeroplan for points. End of subject.
United is worthless for domestic lounge access. So...definitely not even close to closed.
I wonder why Ben consistently mentions Lufthansa First class, as if it was the best First class in the sky. Having flown LH First class many times myself, I think it is a very outdated product, with average food / wines and a subpar entertainment system. The promise that one day before I die, I may eventually see the Allegris in real, doesn’t make me frown, particularly when I am planning to fly SQ First, among others….
Lufthansa is not the best first class in the sky. But which first class options are there between Europe and the USA?
I can only think of
- AA flagship first
- BA First
- AF first
- LH first
- LX first
(SQ first from FRA to JFK. Any EK options?)
AA and BA are underwhelming. AF almost impossible to book with miles.
This, LH/LX are the only First Class options that can be consistently booked with miles.
Does it make sense to credit miles to Turkish if you exclusively fly LH Group carriers? The M&M program is garbage for redemption... Or is there another program someone would recommend?
I wanted to do the same, however after redefining rules on Miles and Smiles recently, I do not see any benefit in this anymore.
Swiss is extremely hard to book with points unlike Lufthansa, and y'all have to realize that first class availability may highly decrease after Lufthansa starts to seriously refitting their planes because of simply less seats in the cabins. Sq doesn't fly the a380 to my knowledge on fra to jfk rather the 777 with the old first class.
Depends on what your goal is. TK is terrible for redemption but quite easy for status.
Why is no one talking about the fact that United has literally stopped releasing business award availability to Air Canada... Particularly to the ANZ region.
And, consider which airlines resist opening award inventory to partners. Such as United. If you want premium cabins, you'll likely need United points.
Aegean doesn't require 36 000 points within a year. It's true that you initially need 36k but you don't need to earn them in one year. First you have on year to earn 12 000 and once you do, the timer resets and you have a year to earn additional 24 000. Afterwards you only need 12 000 every year for a renewal.
Generally correct.
There’s on subtetly: if you earn 11 999 status miles (=silver status) in the first year and your next itinerary is FRA-SIN-AKL-KKE, you shouldn’t use the FRA-SIN oder SIN-AKL flights to achieve the 12 000 miles.
Once the 12 000 is reached, the additional miles will not roll over to the 24 000 goal.
Instead, use the short AKL-KKE hop where you gain 500 miles flat to qualify for silver.
Generally correct.
There’s on subtetly: if you earn 11 999 status miles (=silver status) in the first year and your next itinerary is FRA-SIN-AKL-KKE, you shouldn’t use the FRA-SIN oder SIN-AKL flights to achieve the 12 000 miles.
Once the 12 000 is reached, the additional miles will not roll over to the 24 000 goal.
Instead, use the short AKL-KKE hop where you gain 500 miles flat to qualify for silver.
Once qualified, request a retroactive mileage claim for the other two long flights.
12000 miles for renewal with 4 flights on Aegean or 24k to retain without the flights.
It’s 70k to requalify without A3 flights these days