Sky Team vs. Star Alliance
 

Hello,

I am new to this site and wonder if the members can help me with this dilemma.

In the past several years, I accumulated my miles mainly on Sky Team (via Air France) or Star Alliance (via United).

This is wasteful as I can't seem to reach either 1K status on UA or Flying Blue Gold on AF so I am thinking about sticking to one program.

Which program do you think is better?

I mainly fly internationally, about 5 times a year including short flights inside Europe (total of about 15-20 segments per year).

As such I like that AF hub is in Paris, which is comfortable for domestic flights in Europe (when they are not on strike) but with UA, I am getting miles on my credit cards, which can be up to 30K per year.

Thank you for your expert opinion!

Richard

Go with Star Alliance.. They have the major carriers.. Skyteam has been going down hill..

*A for the versatility and availability (overall)

Use Lufthansa and their hubs in FRA, MUC and DUS - as well as affiliated hubs in BRU, ZRH, GVA and LHR - for your European travels.

Credit to your UA account.

Profit.

I would advice to drop and run away from Flying Blue - many of us have did that since last year.

you can follow the discussion in the flying Blue section of the miles&points.

Might help a bit to know where you fly in Europe, what class of service you fly, and what you'd like to do with your miles and status--award flights? upgrades?

But based on what you've said so fare, UA and Star Alliance seem to be your best bet because there are so many Star Alliance partners within Europe--LH, Brit Midland, Austrian, SAS, Swiss, etc.

Other options to consider, that other folks here might know more about than I would in terms of convenience from LAX: 1. If you're not flying much domestically and if your international flights are in C or F, the LH FF program might be a better bet for you than UA because of (what I understand are) its mileage accrual advantages. Both are *A members. 2. AA, BA and Iberia as One World members might be a good combination for getting to and beyond Europe. And if you have to/want to stop off in Europe, London is a nicer location than Frankfurt. BA has very nice lounges in LHR. One big obstacle to the AA-BA partnership has been that you can't accrue or redeem one airline's miles on the other one, flying between the USA and London. But apparently there's an excellent chance this will change now that the US Government has approved closer collaboration between the two.

Credit cards shouldn't be a mayor issue as you can use an Amex that transfers to FB.

*Alliance is the only reason I stick with UA. I fly to Asia often and they've got most of it locked up with NH, OZ, SQ, TG, CA, FM and others. Coincidentally, those carriers go where I want to go! :D

Star Alliance hands down. I'm a Platinum on Delta and they want all your miles as well as your first born to get a business/first seat on their planes. I've flown UAL for years and as much as I'm not really crazy about the product (the FA's need attitude training) the rewards travel is better by leaps and bounds.

I've been with SkyTeam for years but the past year or two, I noticed ST is consistently more for TATL than other carriers. For instance, it's more expensive to fly to CDG from SFO on ST than on BA for instance. However, I didn't know they didn't allow rewards redemption with other members of their alliance.

I heard LH is more cramped than ST though, at least in coach.

Keep in mind BA is not in *A, they're in oneWorld...BA has also been running some steep fare sales over the past few months, and you might have seen that. I myself was tempted to switch to oW due to excellent flight times to LHR from my main departure city, but if you look at other routes BA flies, you might find a different pricing story. The main reason I didn't switch was because of BA's domestic partner, AAwful.

Picking an airline and an alliance is really up to you, the routes you fly, the times you want to fly, and how much you want to spend. They all have their pluses and minuses. *A has lots and lots of flights, but do you need 3 US domestic carriers? ST has only a handful of real options (DL, AF/KL, KE) - do they go where you actually need them to go? Who gets you there the best way, however it is you want to get there?

The rest is just number crunching, really, to see where you end up getting the most bang for your buck.

I think cfw makes some good points, though I am more favorably inclined toward AA than s/he is, especially for its highest (Executive Platinum) status.

The specific constraint on BA award accrual and redemption isn't on all One World partners--it's just with respect to AA on flights from the USA to LHR, though as I previously mentioned that may well change for the better in a year or so.

As for LH, I've also heard bad things about its transatlantic coach seats.

Again, a lot depends on what class of service you'll be ticketing in and other variables, including what you'll want to be using your status and miles for. If international upgrades are priority, then once you reach 1K on UA you get six of those a year. Once you reach the rough equivalent, Executive Platinum, on AA, you get eight a year. a consideration.

If you're mainly going to be flying coach, you might want to go find out what accrual you get on partner airlines if you fly them economy, since it's not always 100 percent. You can find that out for UA, for instance, by going to the Mileage Plus section of its site and then finding the page listing airline partners.

Having said all this, I realize that checking this out can involve an investment of time and climbing a learning curve that you might not want to bother with. If you're simply considering UA and Star Alliance versus Delta and ST, the bottom line is that you're probably better off with the former.

Thank you everybody. I guess *A it is...:cool:

Given your situation, you definitely can't go wrong with *A. I was 1K with UA for many years, before switching over to AA a couple months ago, and had nothing to complain about. Award availability and upgrades on UA could be better, but that's not the fault of *A.

*A has the largest coverage and I personally like the econ plus seats on UA.