In late 2026, the Asiana Airlines brand will disappear, given that the airline has been acquired by Korean Air, as part of some major consolidation in the South Korean airline industry. With the brand disappearing, we knew that Asiana would leave Star Alliance, meaning the entire combined airline will become part of SkyTeam.
Continue reading: Nuts: Asiana Refuses To Honor Existing Award Tickets After Star Alliance Exit
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
At the same time, Q6 on the same page suggests that you can redeem miles for flights on A3, AV, OU and TK until 16 December 2026 for travel until 16 December 2027. Which doesn't make sense since award tickets post 16 December 2026 are supposed to be cancelled.
Same goes for hotels when rebranding, why hotels or airlines should honor benefits if they don't participate in a program anymore ?
the company will probably offer solutions to rebook prior to exit or refund
This policy is unlikely to affect anyone since star alliance redemptions for travel beyond Dec 17 had been blocked already. See notices dated 2026.01.14 and 2025.12.23
For any flights departing from europe, they would be required to provide an alternate flight at no additional cost. Under no circumstance accept a refund as that would absolve them of their responsibility to rebook.
The Asiana redemption website has been having these warnings about dates for a long time. You have to click agree to continue booking.
The more frustrating thing is until today, Korean Air / Asiana haven’t rolled out what Morning Clam Select will look like. Without knowing what to expect, I have been slowly transitioning out of Asiana.
Korean Air is losing the opportunity on “buying/retaining” the Asiana Customer base.
Basically a big nothingburger. Since this is already planned out far in advance, with redemptions in either direction blocked after the merger date. Even though the policy does indeed sound atrocious.
I will miss the opportunity to redeem 40k miles for EY First class EU-AUH.
Per UK261/EC261 , SHY in Turkey and several other countries,
they have to offer a rebooking or refund. It is just that > 14 days there is no compensation.
They could also rebook on Korean and Skyteam ? After all they are going to be KE so if you have an award bkg for January eg LAX ICN they cannot suddenly say they cannot do anything.
Like others mentioned, Star redenptions have been blocked for a long time for past Dec.1
Have they announced when one can move miles to Korean?
It’s trendy to bash hospitality in the United States but I find customer friendly practices to be few and far between in Asia and Europe, unless you are a really wealthy VIP
Because people made bookings in good faith, they have a reasonable expectation that the tickets will be honored.
When an acquiring company (in this case, Korean) buys another (Asiana), they are also inheriting the debs (known as "successor liability" - in this case, Korean honors tickets already booked by/under Asiana).
As well, there will be horrible press that accompanies it IF (see maxi's comment, below) there are any ticket holders actually impacted after 17 December (e.g., if there are any Asiana award ticket holders at all after that date).
I thought Nuts was a Korean Air thing? This merger has already assimilated Korean Air's culture into Asiana.
The Korean government has been heavily involved in the entire KE/OZ merger including regarding loyalty program integration; it is very likely that KE is doing exactly what the Korean government is requiring and no more.
As others have noted, there have been warnings that customers knew about for booking award tickets beyond what was known to be after OZ is integrated into KE.
The real part to watch is how KE and its JV Partners rebuild KE's network using the capacity that OZ currently flies as well as how quickly the integration of fleet and everything else happens
I would fully expect this sort of customer unfriendly behavior. Asiana isn’t just exiting Star Alliance, it’s ceasing to exist, so management’s perspective is that there’s no brand equity or goodwill to protect. Korean Air already isn’t exactly loved by Korean consumers and, as now the only player on stage, aren’t terribly concerned with the optics.
Am I missing something? Asiana is saying that a ticket booked on a Star Alliance carrier using Asiana miles is no longer valid. What incentive is there for any Star Alliance airline to accommodate an Asiana award ticket after Asiana is gone from Star?
Wonder how a Star Alliance partner award made using Asiana miles on, say, LH (or another carrier) to fly on routes subject to EU261, made very close to the exit would go, unless it was specifically pointed out that the ticket would be void. If subsequently ticketed and then cancelled within 14 days of travel, could they be held liable under those rules?
I suspect they'd argue that it's a known now, but, unless that's pointed out during the booking process, it would be entirely possible for someone to make a booking with no knowledge of the upcoming changes.
I cbf to read EU261 right now and form a solid opinion at 00:15, when I have to be up in a few hours, but potential food for thought there (either that, or it's a straightforward answer I haven't considered).
Well, Europe legally force customer protection on airlines (and companies in general), whether they like it or not, so there's that.
Agree with your last sentence particularly - this is something that AS/VX did particularly well (which surprised me from a pair of US carriers!) as I recall. I was indifferent to VX, so would have probably thought nothing of it, but AS gave everyone 10k Mileage Plan miles, which has retained my engagement with AS Mileage Plan to this day, at relatively little cost to them at the time.
Was a good strategy, especially in the US market, where the customers would just be quickly absorbed by other carriers. Worked doubly well for those of us outside the US, who are more inclined to either pick an airline based on the alliance of our main carriers, or price alone.
Bookings for AV/OU are particularly interesting in that case, as most likely to be covered by EU261. Make a booking on 15 Dec for travel on 17 Dec. If they cancel it unilaterally without good reason/re-accommodation, that potentially triggers the right to compensation...
*A3 and OU, not AV, my error - I mean, AV/TK would potentially be in the same boat, but A3 and OU are more likely to involve a flight subject to EU regulations.
My thoughts are along the same line as yours. That said, doesn't mean carriers won't try to avoid it. VA/QR are particularly good at saying "sorry, nothing we can do" - QR bin the flight, VA can't really help that, as they no longer have a long haul network, but as ticketing carrier that's their problem if it originates in the EU, and they absolutely could re-route on one of their many partners.
OTOH, BA, for their many, many sins, have largely given up (in my experience) trying to argue about this and just deal with it now.
I suspect OZ would fall into the QR/VA-like bucket, being removed from the market, whereas BA are right in the middle of it and almost all their flights would be subject to those regulations.
Money, obviously. Airlines don't accept award tickets out of goodness of their heart. They get paid for it.
When SK exited Star Alliance in 2024, award tickets issued before the switchover were accepted.
@Tim,
Mark my words, KE currently being the LCC 5/6th freedom bucket carrier to Asia, KE is just eliminating a competitor, there will be very marginal expansion as they try an increase their crappy yields.
Basically for the past year, I have been crediting all my Star Alliance miles to ANA (use Asiana’s star gold perks, then change membership number to ANA before boarding). I didn’t try to re-qualify Asiana status because no officially info has been released about Morning Calm Select.
This is also bad for Asiana/Korean because they had to pay my lounge access while not getting miles credited to them. Meanwhile, a frequent flyer has smoothly transitioned away from Asiana.
Smart move for AS!