Star Alliance Wants To Add Low Cost Carriers As Partners

@lucky -

We would want to see a meaningful earnings chart for members that rewards flights with these partners with some redeemable and elite qualification miles rewarded to those who do fly one of these LCC partners.

Is that too much to ask?

I would imagine it will be more likely to offer something like lounge access at the main carrier's hub airport than full mileage earning. eg flying EWR-FRA-XXX, with the first leg on LH and the second on Eurowings, it's more likely that a passenger would be granted lounge access in FRA- that's relatively low cost for LH to do, than to offer miles. Indeed they have a partial arrangement with UA to do this already.

Well, they sort of offer such an arrangement now - I’m booked to Rome from LAX on Austrian Air and my connecting flight is on Eurowings in the second row which is their “premium economy” section which is actually pretty decent. I flew them this past summer from
Zurich to Split and we purchased preferred seating with checked baggage and snack.

It wouldn't be a stretch of imagination for *A benefits to be offered to those connecting from TG onto WE (Thai Smile, wholly owned by Thai IIRC).

With credit cards and other means of earning, I really don't care much about earning through flying. These flights tend to be short too and so the lack of earning is not a huge deal.

Allowing redemptions, but no earning on these carriers would be fine with me. I have a feeling that in a few years, all of the intra EU flights will be on these carriers rather than on BA, IB, LH, AF etc. Then redemptions that can be coupled with long haul will be essential.

Have been earning miles on MileagePlus with Juneyao for some time. Like it.

United's Basic Economy fare doesn't earn miles, seat selection or check bags. Thus United doesn't need a low fare Star Alliance partner!

I would really like to finally earn miles on Edelweiss Air. Many routes from Zurich and most new routes are flown by Edelweiss as SWISS uses them to expand. Currently you can't earn status miles on them and normal miles only thriugh miles and more and not my preferred Eurobonus. Quite ridiculous since you can even land on a flight to Paris booked through SWISS but operated by Edelweiss and not earn any miles.

Lucky, I think you're being too liberal with the term "ultra low cost carrier". Granted, the threshold is hazy at best, but it's still worth differentiating a "traditional" European LCC, like Ryanair, Easyjet, Jet2 or Germanwing, from the likes of Spirit, which brought the business model to an entirely new level by really only selling a seat in their basic fare. Southwest may well be an LCC, compared to the Big 3, yet they still provide a certain level of service. Likewise, Norwegian has free wi-fi and complimentary seat assignment at check-in, Ryanair now offers flexible fares, a better baggage policy and even some connections; Volotea is quite family-minded etc. It feels wrong to lump all of these together with some truly barebones airlines out there, much more so in the context of possible alliance partnerships.

Air Canada's "budget" carrier Rouge is already part of Star. Same mileage requirments for an inferior service. Still earn the same mileage.

So how would they adjust their redemption rates? Who will want to pay same price flying J (or F) on a lousy LCC as on a full-service carrier?? Not me, for one!

If we can't earn on these CPs then *A frequent flyers would not want to book on CPs but on *A airlines instead. This is probably what they want, being able to give passengers more routing options without giving too much away to CPs.

But the question now is will the mere affiliation and some compensation from *A work well for the CPs.

United MileagePlus members can earn and use some benefits flying on EuroWings, not just on connections. I also believe the same applies to ANA, another LH joint venture partner. So EuroWings isn’t far off this Connecting Partner status; it’s just that Lufty is calling the shots.

i thought that united golds and above can use the lounges on eurowings anyway..so this wouldnt affect
can they bring a guest as well?

One World have been selling Vueling as Iberia for Years and Vueling is not just a Low cost carrier they are also a "even-less-comfort-then-Ryanair-carrier" but with older planes.

Lounge access is not that important when you fly non-stop as most budget airlines do.

Jetstar is owned by Qantas and any Qantas Gold, Platinum or Platinum one frequent flyers flying on Jetstar in any class gets lounge access when their is a Qantas lounge at the departing airport.