Originally Posted by enviroian
. . . from what I can gather from what she said about * Alliance looks like we'll be able to redeem miles now in Star...very cool indeed (although not sure how that would help me in phoenix though over the atlantic!)
In terms of non-stop flights it won't help you. If, as expected, the BA relationship comes to an end, you'll be looking at at least one-stop service to wherever you want to go in Europe. (Though today, even if you're lucky enough to get a seat on the BA PHX-LHR non-stop, that's only a non-stop to London; if you're going anywhere else in Europe, you're still looking at another flight.) If, in fact, the BA relationship goes away, I would expect US, LH or UA to launch some non-stop services from PHX to Europe. That would be nice.
In the meantime, you'll have access to all the trans-Atlantic flights on all of those carriers (and more), many of which will be one stop in the US, then non-stop to your European destination. I don't know how award availability is via US on Star Alliance flights, but there is no question that there are a lot more possibilities in terms of flights than we have with HP today.