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.

Wish I would have listened/known this advice years ago. At 900k flown miles on Delta, my flying from/to Asia is almost all on *Alliance carriers now due to comfort, cost and the ability to actually use SWUs

Same here... about ready to send Delta my Platinum card and tell them where they can shove it. Sick and tired of that airline and their "partner" Air France.

My suggestion is to go with *A. Skyteam can give you for sure a status earlier (30 flights and you are gold) but I do not see much value with them.
OW could be interesting if you fly mainly through UK with BA as Finnair and Malev are not covering that much Europe and Iberia is not that interesting.

Look where you fly and then decide.

So I choose *A with UA and now I have to plan my next trip to Europe (France, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Romania).

Any way I tried to book my trip using UA or *A, the prices were far from realistic.

Even just the portion for LAX to NCE and back was over 5.5K with AU (for Economy !!!).

Also, all the flights in Europe are with affiliates so I have zero chance to upgrade.

Ended up booking my transatlantic with AA for a fraction of the price (Although, now I am stuck in economy of course).

Still need to figure out the European portion (maybe AirPass?).

Is there any (reasonable) way to use my AU to upgrade with other *A partners?

without a doubt its star, there are no so many options for redemptions especially in N America (4 carriers).

And if looking for a particular Star program, CO is the best unless you feel you can hit 100K/yr then go with UA.

Delta Airlines is so very awful in terms of award ticket pricing and availability when it comes to using miles on DL flights that I have cut back on my use of SkyTeam and shifted the business elsewhere as much as I could.

SkyTeam might as well be called SkyTrash.

Star is anyday better. More airlines, more routes, more availability

No. Upgrades across partners is not something that any of the global alliances do in a reasonable manner. If you want to sit up front you either need to be on a reward flight redeemed in the forward cabin or buy the ticket there.

Go to the AA forum and look at the stickie that describes the Gold/Plat Challenges. Once you have Plat you get lounge access on future international trips and get 100% rdm bonus.

Notwithstanding all that has been said above, there's one BIG problem with *A. that I have not yet been able to resolve. They lack a LHR-AMS direct route.

BMI was the only *A carrier doing that flight, and they are about to drop it.

Therefore, if you fly LHR-AMS with any regularity, SkyTeam would be my recommended option.

How does oneworld compare to SkyTeam?

If ST awards aren't competitive, would oneworld be an option? I do plan to go to Sydney and flying the A380 on Quantas from LAX is a draw.

But mostly fly to Europe otherwise.

I've been pretty happy with OW award redemptions thru both AA and BA. I find pretty good availability for what I am looking for (PacNW departures to Europe or Asia in Biz or First). That said, I have a big presence on *A too because OW doesn't always work.

I'd recommend getting one of the various tools that lets you look at OW and *A availability (I use the KVS tool as a one stop shop for both) and then do some searches for things you'd contemplate using miles for.

The next step is to figure out where you want to bank miles, and for that you need to look carefully at the programs. US programs tend to give more miles for discounted fare classes, but non-US programs can have appeal if you fly only premium classes. One of the key OW things you'll have to deal with if you are heading to europe is the BA/AA transatlantic issue (although that might go away).

Thanks, been with DL forever but if they keep creeping up the award levels, then there's no point accumulating with them any more.

OW does seem pretty limited compared to the other two.

I second that one!!!

2nd big problem is HKG-TPE
There is no * carrier fly this route now.
If you want to fly between HKG-TPE, you need to route through PVG.
It's like you fly from NYC to D.C. and you have transfer in Kansas City.....

+ 1
 

Thanks for this, i also needed the verification on the Asia info.

Taht really sucks.

This was an interesting comparative done in 2009.

http://www.insideflyer.com/articles/...e.php?key=5794

What has changed now? I was CO Gold once i.e. SkyTeam Elite and now Star Alliance.

I dont have status anymore but am looking at using the Aegen for Gold Status.

Wondering which ALLIANCE is best now?

What matters to me:
- Award / Redemption of Miles for International Long Haul FC/ BC (Once in a while)
- Baggage allowance (more often)
- Priority Security etc (more frequent)

Be aware that on LH, discount economy within Europe gets no miles on United.

Only the absolute lowest fares - K, L, T - are non-earning.

Also, my original post is now 3.5 years old. ;)

If you want long-haul F then SkyTeam is the worst option, though none are particularly great as F cabins are shrinking, access to awards is being limited and YQ surcharges grow. All 3 provide similar baggage benefits to elites, though the implementations do vary slightly. And most provide priority security at their home/allaince partner hub airports. OW gets bonus points for LHR FastTrack for top elites (I think), a relatively new benefit. Of course, if you can simply avoid LHR instead I'd say that's a better benefit.