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.
While that’s not news as such, what is noteworthy is the ridiculous way the airline plans to treat those with already ticketed award reservations, as those policies have just been published. I don’t ever recall seeing an airline take such a customer unfriendly stance.
In this post:
Asiana screws over those with Star Alliance award tickets
Asiana Airlines has put out a formal notice about how it’s leaving the Star Alliance, and this contains all kinds of details regarding how the transition will work. Most of the details are roughly what you’d expect, regarding the end of the ability to earn and redeem miles, and no more elite perks when traveling on Star Alliance partners.
However, as noted by LoyaltyLobby, something in the FAQs is surprising:
I already ticketed a Star Alliance award flight using Asiana miles for travel on or after December 17, 2026. Since this falls outside the flight dates listed above, am I unable to fly?
Even if already ticketed, these tickets will no longer be valid for travel following our exit from Star Alliance. We recommend contacting the Asiana Airlines Reservation Center to review your reservation and discuss cancellation or alternative itinerary options. Affected tickets will be fully refunded and miles reinstated without penalty.
Just to clarify, this specifically seems to be for those redeeming Asiana Club miles for travel on other airlines, while there’s no indication that redeeming Star Alliance miles from other programs for travel on Asiana would cause tickets to be canceled. But who knows, maybe we’ll also see that, given this bizarre approach.
This is an unprecedentedly stingy policy
Generally when airlines leave an alliance, they lose access to award availability as of the exit date, which is fair enough. However, I can’t think of a single time we’ve seen an airline change alliances (or something along those lines) where already ticketed reservations weren’t honored.
This is unnecessarily punitive, because there’s no reason the policy needs to be this way. To be clear, it’s normal to not allow ticket changes to another flight operated by that alliance in these situations, but to not even honor existing tickets as booked? There’s simply no logic for this.
One wonders if this is actually what Asiana intends, or if someone who doesn’t actually understand this stuff was put in charge of coming up with these policies. How generous, though, that they’re promising to redeposit these tickets without penalty, eh?
It seems to me like this policy is even of questionable legality in some jurisdictions, given that the airline is just choosing to not honor already ticketed reservations without good reason.
Bottom line
Asiana Airlines will be exiting Star Alliance as of late 2026, which isn’t a surprise, given the integration into Korean Air, which belongs to SkyTeam. The implications here are mostly what you’d expect, with one exception — Asiana won’t honor already ticketed award reservations for travel on Star Alliance partners. I don’t recall an airline ever taking such a stance, and at best, this is extremely customer unfriendly.
What do you make of Asiana not honoring partner award tickets?
One more reason never to return to Korea.
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...
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).
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?
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.
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.
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...
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
@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.
I thought Nuts was a Korean Air thing? This merger has already assimilated Korean Air's culture into Asiana.
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
Well, Europe legally force customer protection on airlines (and companies in general), whether they like it or not, so there's that.
We have extremely strong consumer protection in Europe. The US doesn’t.
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?
Do they think they're running a hotel chain, or what?
#bonvoyed
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.
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.
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...
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.
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...
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!
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.
Is that also true if you depart in more than 15 days?
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.
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,...
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.
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
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
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...
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).
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.
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.
I look forward to the lawsuits.
See you in court.