go_around

Yes.

RonaldRoss

With only KQ being the only carrier to fly there within the big three alliances. the Comoros is a close contender. There must be quite a few countries that can only be reached by having miles with one particular alliance.

sdsearch

And some countries are physically big but without domestic airline competition. So simplifying it to whether multiple alliances fly to somewhere, anywhere in a country may not always help.

In other words, there are some countries where only one city in one corner is reachable by multiple alliances, but only one alliance can take you to the opposite corner of that big country. For example, in Norway, any alliance can get you to Oslo, and nowadays to Bergen (though that's just a recent addition for OW), but further afield most cities are only reachable on *A (due to SAS's dominance there), and some of those cities are so far by surface transport that it's not practical to get to them (from Oslo or even Bergen) without flying.

And since it's not possible (is it?) to combine award flights from multple alliances into one ticket (so that you're "protected"), if you want to fly directly to the other corner of that country (not stopping over in the corner which all the alliances serve), you probably have to do the entire trip on the alliance that gets you to that corner of that country.

... And then there are countries which are reachable with some airline's miles, but no airline in any of the three alliances flies there, and so it may be miles from only a small number of airlines (the non-alliance airline that serves that country and perhaps it's limited non-alliance partners) that can be used to fly there.

hauteboy

Fiji Airways flies to Tuvalu, but that route is not available using miles for some reason.

pinniped

Kind of in the same vein as the Greenland discussion: can you reach the Galapagos using miles? Or is mainland Ecuador the closest you can get?

This is one of our bucket list trips, but I recall as of a few years ago the Quito-Galapagos segment had to be bought with cash and was a VERY expensive ticket.

Indelaware

There are two airports in the Galapagos Islands - SYC & GPC each is served by 2K (Star Alliance), XL (One World), and EQ (Not in any alliance, but has its own FFP).

sdsearch

Can Quito-Galapagos not be gotten with LAN kms? (I guess LAN kms is or isn't "miles", depending on how you look at it. ) The thing you need understand is that LAN has variable redemption pricing, and LAN flights are only redeemable with other airline's (OW) miles if LAN has them at the lowest pricing. If LAN has them at higher redemption pricing, you can only redeem with LAN kms, not any other OW currency. (That's sort of similar to how if AA has AAnytime availability but not SAAver, you can't use BA Avios or any other OW currency, only AA miles for that. Except LAN has more levels than just 2, while AA has only 2 levels, SAAver and AAnytime.)

Meanwhile, be aware that you can't redeem LAN kms for one-way nonstop trips, only round trips (and perhaps open jaw trips with at least two legs).


EDITED TO ADD:

This short thread:
confirms exactly what I theorized above: Galapagos flights on LAN are bookable with LAN kms but typically not bookable with other OW FFP currencies.

pinniped

That's better than what used to exist then. ^ UIO often has reasonable paid fares (plus is obviously accessible via all sorts of miles), and a new LAN account followed by an SPG conversion could, in theory, get one to the Galapagos at a decent total cost.

wholelottamiles

Pleeeeaaase. Those flights from Miami are way overpriced and since they're charters we don't even earn miles. My guess is that you go through Panama, others have mentioned Avianca's program through Bogota.

sdsearch

Cuba is reachable by miles if you're not based in the USA. It's not (legally) reachable by miles if you are based in the USA. Currently, most US citizens are not yet allowed to travel to Cuba unless they fall into some special categories.

AA has announced that it will start commercial flights from LAX (and presumably other cities) to Havana as soon as the US government allows it. (That was a side note in an announcement the other week of LAX-Havana charters that AA is starting in partnership with a Cuba travel package arranger.) So at the very least, AA miles should at some point be usable for travel from the US to Cuba, but it's not known when.

TravelTexan

When I was in Brisbane (BNE) this summer, there were flights on Virgin Australia to Papua New Guinea. Since I am in the US, I cannot sign up for a Virgin Australia account, so I don't know if you could use miles or not.

MSPeconomist

You can use DL miles for VA flights. AFAIK this includes all flights operated by VA but might exclude codeshares, commuter flights operated by affiliated regional carriers, etc.

ryanbryan

POM should be easily reachable with both QF and VA miles. QF is also a partner of Air Niugini, so you can reach POM on an award booking on the QF service from CNS or any Air Niugini services from BNE/SYD.

John Z Wetmore

I checked on using miles to get to Bratislava, Slovakia, in October. It didn't look feasible on my programs. I took the train from Vienna - only an hour, 16 Euros round trip.

kwloo

Thought I should mention I managed to redeem a Star Alliance redemption ticket through Singapore Airlines Krisflyer from Sao Paulo to Havana via Panama City.