Originally Posted by
WineCountryUA
Nothing new, any recent changes have been for the positive as ANA/NH has become a Joint Venture partner.
In Star Alliance, you earn based on the flight operator -- codeshares make no difference. In Star Alliance, you earn the best flying your program's flights and earn less when flying a partner -- especially on discounted flights.
All the *A programs do this to some degree and UA is among the best. There is no prefect program (SQ does well for UA operated flights). So it will depend on the mixture of carriers to optimize this. Again UA is better than most.
So who do you fly the most?
You need to watch out of award flight fees, so called fuel or international surcharges. That can be quite nasty on some programs.
As this is a general *A query, will move this to the *A Forum where is this a regular question.
WineCountryUA
UA coModerator
WineCountry, Thank you for the response! my problem is, I'm the guy who flies with just about everyone. This year star alliance cornered the market. Last year, in was OneWorld. I search for flights out of ORD and basically book insane deals. I didn't really have an aptitude to fly to Tokyo, but 350 r/t nonstop is just too good to pass up. with OneWorld, I just put in my AA number, and I earned the base miles on my AA account, regardless of the carrier.
I signed up for MP for the same purpose. I can't really say that I picked UA for more UA flights, I've only flown UA one time from AMS to ORD (ord to ams r/t w/ Swiss) and it was awful. I would rather not fly them again if I don't have to.
Then again, this year I flew ANA, Swiss, AC, UA, and Turkish. ANA 5x base fare, AC 25% base miles, Swiss varied, and UA the base miles. UA gave me nothing for my Turkish U Class flight. before June 1st 2016, Aeroplan considered that business class.
I guess I'm just frustrated