US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Farewell Swiss

Has this already been discussed? SWISS is dropping out of the partner program effective 30 June 2002 (travel must be complete by 30 Jun 2003).

Alitalia is also going away effective 1 Jan 2003, but that somehow doesn't cause me as much grief. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

The options for international award travel are getting thinner and thinner. Of course US Envoy to Europe is great, but what if you want to go somewhere... anywhere.. else in Europe or Africa?

Interesting. Qualiflyer has not yet announced the termination of the partnership, but I guess they won't continue "one way", without US flyers being able to accrue Dividend Miles on LX.

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airOli (http://www.olimade.com/airoli), the Swiss Air Line. ;)

Sad. Should not US be GAINING partners instead of losing them left and right??

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Faire du ciel le plus bel endroit de la terre c'est impossible sans Concorde!
~ConcordeBoy

Is this possibly due to an ALLIANCE announcement ?

I doubt it. USAirways is content to sit on their thumbs on these things.

For those of you who have flown in Swiss, is it worth redeeming the extra miles to fly transatlantic on them? I have a week-long stay at an Marriott in London coming up and was wondering if I should burn the points and try SWISS.

As I said elsewhere, at the rate that US is going their only partner choices are going to be Air Dolomoti, Aeroflop, Air Iran, and Olympic.

They should call it the Luck Alliance - because you're going to need lots of it to survive intact to your final destination.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by pitflyer:
For those of you who have flown in Swiss, is it worth redeeming the extra miles to fly transatlantic on them?</font>


I've never flown SWISS, but I did fly roundtrip Swissair FC (IAD-ZRH-AMS) last year. 80k US Envoy vs. 100k for the Swiss award in FC is a no-brainer for me.... Swiss wins hands down. US's FC on the A330 costs 125k and that's probably the biggest ripoff out there right now given that US's FC is only a bigger seat with Envoy food/wines/etc.

However, if you live in PIT, using 80k for the Envoy award to go PIT-LGW non-stop on the A330.... well, non-stop is non-stop and your not earning miles so you decide.

I can say that the FC Suite on Swiss is great and the service I had was incomparable.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by geo1004:

I've never flown SWISS, but I did fly roundtrip Swissair FC (IAD-ZRH-AMS) last year. 80k US Envoy vs. 100k for the Swiss award in FC is a no-brainer for me.... Swiss wins hands down. US's FC on the A330 costs 125k and that's probably the biggest ripoff out there right now given that US's FC is only a bigger seat with Envoy food/wines/etc.

However, if you live in PIT, using 80k for the Envoy award to go PIT-LGW non-stop on the A330.... well, non-stop is non-stop and your not earning miles so you decide.

I can say that the FC Suite on Swiss is great and the service I had was incomparable.

</font>

geo1004 - I made the same conclusions after making my vacation two years in a row in Europe, first on SR F to PRG and second on SR F to TXL&gt; Both were 100,000 DM per ticket and more than a bargain compared to the competition to Europe.

If I had enough miles left I would be booking a trip to nowhere just to fly SR F for one last time. I certainly will never shell out $10K to fly anywhere. But 100,000 DM and I'm there.



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US-CP; UA PE; Hilton Gold VIP; Crowne Plaza Gold

Yesterday a representative from Spanair (JK) was at our MCO res office handing out flyers on their route system throughout Spain and Europe. They have conx in MAD/MUC/FRA. Our office handles the Spanish speaking calls so it was more as an info session on US/JK interline agreements and the paperwork stated things like to be competitive with "AA/IB, CO/UX, BA, AF and others." Does anyone know if Spanair is already in one of those alliances?

Star alliance - Spanair?

Spanair codeshares with UA to MAD from IAD... not sure if they are a full STAR member though???

Just answered my own question. Spanair is listed as a "regional partner" with UA. They are not a STAR member.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by geo1004:
Just answered my own question. Spanair is listed as a "regional partner" with UA. They are not a STAR member.</font>Correct. UA has a partnership w/ Aeromar,
Aloha Airlines, BWIA West Indies Airways, Cayman Airways, Delta Air Lines, Emirates,
LAPA, Saudi Arabian Airlines, and Spanair. The *A is completely different.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by geo1004:
Just answered my own question. Spanair is listed as a "regional partner" with UA. They are not a STAR member.</font>

Interesting, although look at Spanair's partners. Air Canada, Lufthansa, United, SAS, etc.

Looks like a * partner in waiting.

Hey, this is how rumors get started. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/eek.gif


Just be quiet and stay tuned.... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/tongue.gif

Sorry everyone, I'm not trying to start a rumor, but it is all very interesting. I spent 10 minutes or so grilling this person as to a possible DM partner, alliance partner and the only answers he gave were that he was there to provide info to the spanish desk reps on Spanair's connections throughout Spain. Has anyone ever flown them? The info sheet shows their route structure and their fleet types/numbers.

A couple years ago my wife and I flew US to MAD and Spanair from MAD to Barcelona and it was fine. The flights were on time and the service was acceptable. The one thing that stuck out in my mind more than anything else was that it was a morning connection and the flight was only a little more than an hour, but they served a full breakfast and there was no first class cabin. They were extremely efficient, serving from the front and back of the aircraft, with a full beverage service before and after and meal - all in a little more than an hour! I was quite impressed since US airlines cut out meal service in coach on flights under two hours years ago.

Spanair (JK) is partially owned by SAS and has codeshare agreements with Lufthansa and SAS within Europe. They served the IAD-MAD daily unti Fall 2001, when service was reduced, and then cancelled. It is a stated goal of JK to join *A (supposedly during 2003), but in the meantime there are some JK/US "bulk fare," agreements floating around. My experience has been that JK is far superior to Iberia within Spain and Europe as a whole.

USAirways has the most extensive route network on the East Coast. Theoretically, it should be the most sought after marketing partner by a major overseas intenational carrier. Lacking service to JFK, the most important international gateway, and dumping flights to Boston, as well as major Florida cities, seriously mitigates that strength. By limiting feed to PHL and CLT, and requiring a change of airports in NYC (try that sometime), it is unlikely that second tier carriers like Spanair or Swiss can derive anything meaningful from a link. The old Swissair (and Alitalia) links used to include US codesharing on feeder flights between markets such as PHL and BOS, which saved the overseas guys having to fly their widebodies on those short tag segments. When that stopped, they didn't need us. Smaller European airlines from countries which never had enough local traffic, have for years relied on their abiities to run hubs which took you to hard to get places in the East Block or Mideast, and exploited Fifth Freedoms (the right to carry traffic between 2 points not connected to the home country, such as NW flying CPH-STO or DL doing FRA-SVO). The development of super hubs at LHR, CDG, FRA, and AMS is what has flattened these remaining little guys. Even if we get some of them into DM, it simply extends that weakness into our program. Long term, it solves very little.

Just to try to brush back rumor mill..

I have a family member who has worked for US (or its predecessors) for 40 years. Over that time, this family member has probably come home with one 'Spanair' type promotional item per month. They used to give them to me since I was an airplane buff. Avis, hertz, etc used to come by every few months too. [Note to self - where did I put all that stuff?]

Anyway, I just want people to know that this happens regularly. I am not saying Spanair will not be the next partner (though I doubt it - they dont fly to Hawaii ;-) ) but this should not be interpreted as a sign of anything other than good marketing on their part. I hope US does the same thing elsewhere.