Originally Posted by
lagflag
I can't thank you enough for taking the time to list all of these details! Surely it helped! I have a question though about the following statement:
How to know which is which? meaning, how do I suppose to know that Turkish Airlines flight is a redemption partner for United and Singapore? Is there is like a directory or more for such information? Or Google is the best way?
Most major airlines are members of one of three global alliances: oneworld, Star Alliance, and Sky Team. You can Google each of those to see which airlines belong to each alliance. If there is award-seat availability, you should be able to redeem miles from any alliance member's program for travel on any other alliance member. But be aware that the number of miles required for a particular itinerary can vary widely, depending on which program you redeem miles from. For example, I have an upcoming four-segment trip on AA, for which I redeemed 12,000 Iberia Plus Avios. Had I booked the exact same flights with British Airways Avios, I would have been charged 30,000 Avios.
Note that some airlines also have non-alliance redemption partners. For example, Aer Lingus is not a member of any alliance, but you can redeem UA miles for travel on Aer Lingus.
In addition to differences in the number of miles required to redeem for a particular award itinerary, programs also differ as to whether they collect "carrier-imposed surcharges" (formerly "fuel surcharges") on award travel. UA does not; SQ does, at least on some redemptions.
It's a tricky game.