There’s always value in being strategic 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’d like to 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 potentially make it a bit easier, though each has a catch. 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 used to be really compelling for earning Star Alliance Gold status, but now has a much more complex system for maintaining status, which heavily incentivizes flying with Aegean; you either need to fly Aegean 32 times per year, or you need to earn 18,000 elite miles and fly Aegean 12 times per year, or you need to earn 72,000 elite miles on any partner airline per year
- 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 has acquired Asiana, so the airline is expected to leave Star Alliance and join SkyTeam in the next couple of years
- Copa ConnectMiles lets you earn Star Alliance Gold status with 40,000 elite miles, though you do need to complete four segments per year on Copa to qualify
I don’t think there’s a single perfect program, but hopefully the above gives people some ideas. Honestly, I find the whole situation kind of sad at this point. Asiana is leaving Star Alliance, so probably isn’t worth focusing on. Aegean isn’t nearly as lucrative as it used to be. EgyptAir is oddly lucrative, but… well, EgyptAir, and good luck redeeming those miles. I think Turkish is probably the sweet spot in all of this, and the all-around most lucrative option.
If you don’t mind earning status with a program in the United States (and then not getting United Club access on domestic itineraries), there’s always United MileagePlus Gold status. It requires 12,000 Premier Qualifying Points (PQPs), and best case scenario, you can earn one PQP per $15 spent on a United credit card. It’s hard to get too excited about that, since that comes out to $180K worth of credit card spending, but it’s at least worth mentioning.
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. Along those lines, keep in mind that the requirements for elite miles mentioned above aren’t necessarily all 1:1 in terms of elite miles earned vs. distance flown. So that’s definitely something to be aware of.
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 a few 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.
- Also keep in mind mileage expiration policies, since with some programs, miles expire automatically after a certain amount of time, with no way to extend them
I wish I had a Star Alliance elite status strategy
While American is the airline that I fly most (due to living in Miami), I’m not really loyal to any airline, and quite to the contrary, I like to fly as many airlines as possible. I’ve written about my airline elite status strategy, and I think my approach with both oneworld and SkyTeam is pretty straightforward:
- With oneworld, it’s easy to earn oneworld Emerald, including with AAdvantage Platinum Pro status, through credit card spending; Alaska Atmos Rewards is also lucrative, especially with how the program offers status points for award flights
- With SkyTeam, I’m a fan of Air France-KLM Flying Blue, where I have Platinum status, which comes with SkyTeam Elite Plus; I like the program because elite requirements aren’t that extreme, you could even earn status exclusively through crediting partner flights, and the mileage currency is also valuable
Meanwhile I struggle to get excited about going for status with a Star Alliance program. I’m just looking for a program that doesn’t have any requirements to consistently fly any one airline. Maybe I should focus on Turkish Miles&Smiles? Because other than that, all the other programs seem like a non-starter, at least for me. The thing is, Turkish’s mileage currency just isn’t that valuable anymore, so I kind of hate crediting flights to the program.
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 frequent flyer programs to choose from, and personally I think there’s value to trying to pick 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, at least in a way that’s lucrative.
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?
Correction: Asiana will not join SkyTeam. Instead, the brand will be discontinued altogether by 2027, and only Korean Air will be left — much like Vistara did not join the Star Alliance when it merged into Air India in 2024. This is unlike TACA, which did indeed join Star for a short while before being subsumed into Avianca in 2013.
In a previous job in a previous era, flying UA from SEA made a lot of sense because of several good routes. My corporate travel arranger figured out how to credit miles to UA but credit segments to SQ. This always met the SQ threshold for KrisFlyer Gold. I entered domestic UA lounges with that card.
Is such a thing still possible with Star Alliance? How about with Oneworld or SkyTeam?
Warning to people trying to earn status with TK.
They are the scammers of FFP.
TK has modified their program and it's website at least 4 times in a few days after it launched a promo.
4 TIMES!!!!!!
Hardly any confidence left for TK being trustworthy or intention to run their program in good faith.
So do it for the status. But consider your miles next to worthless when some issue happens.
Does one essentially need to start over? I'm currently UA *G. Say if I wanted to concentrate on the TK program for 2026, can I apply the flights to TK, but somehow still use my current *G benefits?
@Ben, Some of us do not fly often enough, or spend enough on credit cards, to qualify for meaningful elite status with more than one "native" airline or alliance. And sometimes we don't have that much of a choice in which carrier we fly or which alliance we become a part of. (You cite living in Miami as being the primary reason you fly AA and, presumably qualify for top-tier status with American and, thus,...
@Ben, Some of us do not fly often enough, or spend enough on credit cards, to qualify for meaningful elite status with more than one "native" airline or alliance. And sometimes we don't have that much of a choice in which carrier we fly or which alliance we become a part of. (You cite living in Miami as being the primary reason you fly AA and, presumably qualify for top-tier status with American and, thus, with oneworld.
For years, the overwhelming majority of my flights were on Southwest out of SJC or OAK, as I was mostly flying within California or to Nevada. Flying cross-country? Usually UA. But then Virgin America began operations and I was top tier status (Elevate Gold) every year of their existence, save one. Then, Alaska took them over...and I was MVP Gold every year until I qualified for MVP Gold 75k (ATMOS Platinum) in 2025/2026. And when AS joined oneworld...well, I did, too.
TK Miles & Smiles w/ 2-year validity is absolutely The Way. Once you have it it’s even easier to requalify
Exactly. I requalified for Star Gold through 2029 already. Although the points earnings are absolute crap in most situations.
Oof. Nope. Then you have to deal with Turkey. Eww. Yuck. No thanks.
@1990 - Turkey is nice and you don't have to "deal with it". There's no requirement to ever fly on TK, unless you're using status match. In all other cases, you can qualify exclusively via other *A flights.
While I was UA *G would credit my wife's companion flights to TK. They would almost never post and would have to submit the info online, which stopped working about this time last year. She called and got nowhere and just scanned and sent the tickets. Let's see if they post. Let my UA lapse as couldn't stomach a couple of mileage runs and now we are free agents. But an earlier poster noted that...
While I was UA *G would credit my wife's companion flights to TK. They would almost never post and would have to submit the info online, which stopped working about this time last year. She called and got nowhere and just scanned and sent the tickets. Let's see if they post. Let my UA lapse as couldn't stomach a couple of mileage runs and now we are free agents. But an earlier poster noted that if you're flying bus class it doesn't matter, which we do more and more often as our schedule is a touch more flexible and can find better rates and redemptions than in the past. So... Singapore and Turkish business class it is for this upcoming trip, with some Aer Lingus business with orphaned Avios to get home. Nice to have stashes of miles sitting around.
Notice the total lack of mention for Krisflyer, easily the worst mileage program ever crafted. Makes Sky Miles look lucrative. :(
Krisflyer is actually great for regional redemptions. We live in Bali and can always find saver awards to Singapore and Malaysia (8000 miles per trip). The Philippines and Thailand are a little more. I have almost not paid for a regional flight in years because of the availability of space on SQ with KF.
Ben, are you still banned by United MP program?
The answer is "no" and has been "no" for a number of years now.
@JJ or @TravelinWilly or @Ben himself...what's the tea? What did I miss? (re: United MP ban)
Is there no hon under your Friends, Ben? He can Gift you Senator Status.
Hardly any benefit if already on a J/F ticket, maybe for IROPS and United flights within USofA (shudder).
The only program that might make sense is, oddly enough, LHGs MilesMore if one wants Swiss F availability and can utilize the companion award being 50% of price on LHG flights. More something for 2027+ once meaningful ammount of planes have a J seating fitting more into the current century. KrisFlyer and ANA's program for better...
Hardly any benefit if already on a J/F ticket, maybe for IROPS and United flights within USofA (shudder).
The only program that might make sense is, oddly enough, LHGs MilesMore if one wants Swiss F availability and can utilize the companion award being 50% of price on LHG flights. More something for 2027+ once meaningful ammount of planes have a J seating fitting more into the current century. KrisFlyer and ANA's program for better award space being the other options.
Turkish Airlines is imho way to go. You basically only need to earn 25k every two years (but within the first year of the two years period) to keep gold, which gives you pretty much all the perks I care about, across *A. Super easy. The value of miles is perhaps a bit weaker but this is not the main concern for me, and I find it still pretty decent anyway (much better than Flying Blue for example).
I have TK miles and am Elite Plus, for the purpose of keeping Star gold. But I keep letting complimentary upgrades go to waste. And I have a tough time using my miles. Any advice?
I was never once able to use my Elite Plus upgrade certificates on TK in nearly a decade of status.
Value a miles a bit weaker is an understatement. I have not been able to redeem anything M&S even on TK, UA, AC let alone Avianca. Essentially you're just coughing up these TK miles just for status.
How often are you flying a *A flight without a J or F ticket?
If the answer is "almost never", how important is *A Gold then?
Exactly, there's no point having any status unless you can make use of the benefits.
Finnair had granted me OWS when I bought a bunch of points during the pandemic, I think it lasted for about 1.5 year during which I only benefitted from it during a single segment on an Iberia domestic flight. My only other oneworld flights were already in business [as I had been using the points!].
My husband and I both have lifetime Star Alliance Gold through United's MileagePlus program, capped at Platinum as we're both 2 Million Milers on UA. Although we live in Canada almost full time and tend to fly Air Canada, Lufthansa, and Singapore Airlines more than United these days we still put our United numbers in the record as we find that we can use UA points to book award tickets to and from our home...
My husband and I both have lifetime Star Alliance Gold through United's MileagePlus program, capped at Platinum as we're both 2 Million Milers on UA. Although we live in Canada almost full time and tend to fly Air Canada, Lufthansa, and Singapore Airlines more than United these days we still put our United numbers in the record as we find that we can use UA points to book award tickets to and from our home airport (YYJ, Victoria) to YVR (Vancouver International) then book YVR to wherever our destination is flights on a separate ticket, saving us hundreds of dollars per year. Our gold statuses also get us access to AC Maple Leaf lounges, etc, even when we're flying in the back. This system seems to work well for us.
Turkish Airlines has some of the worst customer service in the industry. I would not trust them because I’d even the tiniest thing goes wrong, it will be a nightmare and they will be extremely frustrating to deal with. Avoid at all costs.
I seem to remember at one point you preferred Aeroplan (Air Canada) as a program?
Folks,
The answer is OBVIOUSLY OBVIOUS!!
Delta!
*slaps knee* HUH-YUCK!
Keep in mind that TK Miles and Smiles is very stingy with respect to flown miles on a lot of cheap fares. They have an earning chart with partner airlines on their site.
Oof. Please, do not trust Turkish on anything. Save yourselves!
I find TK to be on par with most other programs re cheap fares. One big positive though for frequent UA flyers is 50% for N, G, K and 75% for most other discounted economy classes.
OZ announced they will stop issuing Star tickets for travel in December 2026 and beyond to facilitate the transition to SkyTeam, so the change is likely happening this year and early next!
@Ben, what about *G with AV? It takes less than 25K qualifying miles total (including around 15K flown with AV). If you buy a business class fare (10X qualifying miles), you can easily achieve *G with just 1 RT ticket. For those with a Colombian address, the requirements are even lower.
Fully in line with your comment(s).
Spend $1200 on business fares with Avianca, then accrue the rest on other *A. I moved away from A3/TK last year to this. Speaking of which, going on my first and only AV run of the year NYC-BOG-SCL next week!
@Michael, hope you get to visit the new international diamond lounge and enjoy your *G through Jan-2028!
I agree. I actually think it's even slightly less (12k and 24k miles, respectively), but not completely sure if this applies to all geographical areas.
There are three catches: (1) Yes, you need to earn 12 miles on AV operated flights, no matter what. (2) Only 50% of the miles earned on other *A flights count for status qualification (and yes, earning may already be reduced to 25% or 50%, so it may be 50%...
I agree. I actually think it's even slightly less (12k and 24k miles, respectively), but not completely sure if this applies to all geographical areas.
There are three catches: (1) Yes, you need to earn 12 miles on AV operated flights, no matter what. (2) Only 50% of the miles earned on other *A flights count for status qualification (and yes, earning may already be reduced to 25% or 50%, so it may be 50% of 25%. So earning on non AV flights requires a lot of longer distances and possibly higher fare classes. (3) Lounge access in AV lounges is (oddly) limited to 20 entries per year for Golds and only unlimited for Diamonds (which requires 22.5k/45k miles for qualification). But if you are fine with these three limitations, it's a good choice.
Don't forget that, except for the required miles flown with AV, the rest can be purchased (for every 2 miles purchased, AV will count 1 as elite qualifying), so there's no need to keep flying AV or crediting flights with other airlines. The other thing is that many people might not necessarily be interested in AV benefits per se, but in *G and entries to *G lounges are not capped.
SQ had a reciprocal status match with marriott that could get you to gold (after 4 sq legs), not sure if it's still going on.
Other than that aeroplan changed their program to emphasize spend this year but it's too rich for me so I haven't looked into it much.
It's fine as a one-time, because you cannot do that every year.
I was *G with TK for years, because of its ease of gaining status as there isn’t a requirement of flying with the TK metal even once.
However, it’s no longer lucrative. It’s really pain in the a** redeeming miles for partner airlines, as their website never works (only for TK flights) and customer service somehow always can’t accept tax payments, suggesting they’ll call back within 24hrs from account department which never happened in my...
I was *G with TK for years, because of its ease of gaining status as there isn’t a requirement of flying with the TK metal even once.
However, it’s no longer lucrative. It’s really pain in the a** redeeming miles for partner airlines, as their website never works (only for TK flights) and customer service somehow always can’t accept tax payments, suggesting they’ll call back within 24hrs from account department which never happened in my past several experiences. In the end I had to contact local office to issue the reservation on hold which required additional few dozens of dollar as a surcharge.
For TK award flights it devalued in 2024 so no longer too useful either.
It’s great for retaining status purpose as it only requires 25,000 miles a year to renew two years (yes, not one but two!) but otherwise redeeming points can be quite the hassle.
Hiro gets it. Turkish is a no-no these days.
It depends on which airlines you fly. You can buy a cheap business class ticket (booking class P) which includes flights on Lufthansa and Swiss, crediting to Aegean you'd get NOTHING for the former and 100% for the latter. If it also includes a LH-coded segment between Germany and Greece operated by Aegean you could get another 2750 A3 miles for the 2-hour flight!
This was obviously the response to @E39 which got screwed up by the blog software.
I had gold status with all three alliances in the past. I switched my strategy last year and went all-in Lufthansa (I live in Germany).
I wrote a detailed blog post about the reasons and my strategy change to achieve Hon Circle status here:
https://www.kai-waehner.de/blog/2024/12/13/my-road-to-lufthansa-hon-circle-status-in-2025/amp/
And one year later, I got the benefits of this status strategy:
https://www.kai-waehner.de/blog/2025/12/02/life-as-a-lufthansa-hon-circle-member-inside-the-ultimate-frequent-flyer-status/amp/
I had gold status with all three alliances in the past. I switched my strategy last year and went all-in Lufthansa (I live in Germany).
I wrote a detailed blog post about the reasons and my strategy change to achieve Hon Circle status here:
https://www.kai-waehner.de/blog/2024/12/13/my-road-to-lufthansa-hon-circle-status-in-2025/amp/
And one year later, I got the benefits of this status strategy:
https://www.kai-waehner.de/blog/2025/12/02/life-as-a-lufthansa-hon-circle-member-inside-the-ultimate-frequent-flyer-status/amp/
Hey Ben, had a quick question. Would you be able to do an article on why US airlines don’t have curtains, and whether it makes a material difference in the cabin experience? Thanks very much, appreciate all the content.
It would be useful to include some sort of benchmark for each status threshold in terms of points accumulation. I have absolutely no idea how hard it is to accumulate 40,000 miles with Miles&Smiles – 2 or 40 flights?
Reposting yet again...
It depends on which airlines you fly. As an example, you can buy a cheap business class ticket (booking class P) which includes flights on Lufthansa and Swiss, crediting to Aegean you'd get NOTHING for the former and 100% for the latter. If it also includes a LH-coded segment between Germany and Greece operated by Aegean you could get another 2750 A3 miles for the 2-hour flight!
Ben, how about Egypt Air? :-)
Yikes. Garsh. Eww.
This is good content. That is all.