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Answers (4)

Best Star Alliance Program??

Best Star Alliance Program??

  1. Pauls98 New Member

    I am not familiar with Star Alliance, but will be taking a couple United flights this year. What Alliance is best to credit the miles, taking into consideration ability to easily and affordably purchase miles in the future and redemption possibilities.
    Thank you in advance!

  2. David W Community Ambassador

    There’s really no “best” Star Alliance (or SkyTeam or [B]one[/B]world) program but it’s really what’s best [I]for you[/I].

    United’s MileagePlus has some decent benefits – their routing rules, while somewhat weird, are generally still okay. They dont impose fuel surcharges and their miles are easy to obtain. You can use their own co-branded cards issued by Chase (where some of their perks mimic low level elite status) or Chase’s UR points earning cards that can be transferred to United instantly. A couple of downsides are award change/cancellation fees, issues with more complex routings and horrible earn rates for United issued tickets. UA does run sales on it’s miles from time to time.

    You also have Avianca LifeMiles, where there are a couple of great promotions on purchased miles multiple times a year. Also, you can book awards while not having all the miles – you just purchase the miles (pretty cheaply) at check out when ticketing the award. However, their call center is not the best to deal with and you may have problems trying to change or canceling tickets or trying to ticket awards that are available but are not showing up on their website. None of the transferable points currencies transfer to LifeMiles but they do have their own US credit card.

    Singapore’s KrisFlyer is another good program and the only program that can access SQ premium cabin awards. I dont believe they sell miles but you can transfer them from Amex, SPG, Citi and Chase so theyre easy to obtain. They also seem to have pretty good earnings for most UA flights.

    Those three are pretty much the most popular in the miles and points world. Other noteworthy ones include Aegean, whose program makes it easy to earn StarGold and Asiana’s program partners with Etihad and you can transfer points from SPG to book.

  3. David W Community Ambassador

    Stephen over at Point Me to the Plane made a series of posts related to the ease of booking awards with a handful of Star Alliance programs, if that helps.

    This is his conclusion, but contains links to the first 4 parts:

    [URL]http://pointmetotheplane.boardingarea.com/2017/04/26/comparing-ease-award-booking-5/[/URL]

  4. Pauls98 New Member

    [QUOTE=”David W, post: 30321, member: 29″]Stephen over at Point Me to the Plane made a series of posts related to the ease of booking awards with a handful of Star Alliance programs, if that helps.

    This is his conclusion, but contains links to the first 4 parts:

    [URL]http://pointmetotheplane.boardingarea.com/2017/04/26/comparing-ease-award-booking-5/[/URL][/QUOTE]
    Thank you, David! I appreciate your help!
    Paul

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