I'm sure the people at Horizon Airlines appreciate your comments. I agree, their service from Seattle to Wenatchee is second to none.

And somehow I would think that someone who has flown 8 million miles with Oneworld would know about the U in Qantas.

I've not yet had the chance to visit the new QF F lounges in Oz, but even the T5 CCR is better, IMHO, than the Wing. Much better drinks, a spa, more comfortable seats, and quieter.

Haven't been to the CCR yet, but the MEL/SYD QF F Lounges are better than The Wing in every respect. CX used to have an amazing F lounge, but the other carriers (OW) have surpassed them. Time for them to re-invent (and re-invest) at their home airport.

My comments are about OW and what I expect from an alliance. Not in respect to what other alliances (with which I´m not as familiar provide)

1. But the lack of antitrust immunity does have a negative impact on the alliance, this fact (regardless of the cause) can´t be ignored.
2. So your point is that *A has a worse partial credit set of rules, I´ll trust you. This doesn´t change my view that the current OW system is bad.
3. Maybe I wasn´t clear. Except for between BA & QF you can´t upgrade on another airline within OW. I would expect an alliance to give me the ability to upgrade across the different airlines (QF & BA do that, if you are an alliance this practice should be available across all airlines).
4. Having to fly to “the outer reaches of the continent to get anywhere else” is in my view lack of converge.

1. You are explaining why it is the way it is, it doesn´t change the fact that the differences are there and give the clear impression of something other than an alliance.
2. I have to disagree, if you are an alliance the first thing that I expect is the ability to use the other airlines for code sharing to locations one alliance member doesn’t fly and another does. To me this is by far the most important feature of an alliance (one airline helping another). Otherwise, in my view what you have is not an alliance. An airline can do one-off code share with any partner.
3. I´ll take your word that OW it is better integrated. The fact that I can´t book a seat on IB from a BA website on a single itinerary involving both airline is ugly.
4. Hence my statement “as a OW Sapphire”, as an Emerald my view might be different. However, I can very well judge an alliance as a second tier elite and it is not less (or more) meaningful than view of a top tier elite.
5. The fact that others do not allow this functionality doesn´t change my view that is shows very badly on the alliance. I made it very clear that my comments are about the alliance. If 11 airlines want to call themselves an alliance, then I expect certain functionality to differentiate an alliance member from a partner. This is one area in which OW fails (others might be worse).
6. The issues might be common and I´m sure they are reasons behind them. When I look at alliance, I expect more than I get with just a partner and the grading scale is not on a curve. It might be very well that OW as an alliance is better than *A and ST. It is also the case that in my view OW is below average of what I would expect from an alliance and I consider “C” to be average.

A DONE4 experience
 

Planning/Exploration
--Overall Grade: A+

The oneworld web portal is very professional and in a few ways is even better than the *A web portal. The interactive map is excellent and provides a graphical representation of direct flights vs. connections. This utility has been invaluable to us during our plannig phase, especially with the new 16-segment limitation. I wish the *A site someting similar visually appealing as this utility.

Ticketing
--Overall Grade: B

*A has oneworld beat in this category. We found the best fares to be from South Korea on CX stock. The method of ticket issue was a bit cumbersome. Yea, we could have used a TA from Canada to get our tickets issued, but I'm not sure how a change-in-itinerary would have played out, given that it was like pulling teeth going through CX, our original ticket issuer. Another thing that I didn't care much for is the vast difference in fuel and tax surcharges amongst the different ticketing airlines. Get you acts together, will you, if you are going to act like an "alliance."

Changes to Itinerary
--Overall Grade: F

The changes involved RJ segments, and it was a colossal pain! We initially had CAI-AMM-ATH segments booked in 'L' and we wanted to get them rebooked in 'D'. When we called RJ, the D class was wide-open but they wouldn't make the change because the ticket was issued on CX stock and not on RJ. ...?!? It looked more like a cluster-F#$k more so than an alliance. And, CX wouldn't make the change either because the CAI station couldn't re-issue the ticket and they couldn't find anyone in this world who would?!? After a lot of yelling and screaming and a personal visit to the CAI CX office (which was actually a contract-office) we were finally issued D tickets for our CAI-AMM-ATH flights. Niether RJ no CX were behaving like either of them was part of an alliance.

Airport Lounge Experience
--Overall Grade: A

The lounges were very good to excellent, except for the one at CAI. Don't expect much at CAI when flying out in RJ. The lounge is one of the worst lounges that we've ever been in - even LAX interim *A F lounge in 2007 was better than this one.

In-flight Experience
--Overall Grade: A-

A few of the most memorable flights:
- BKK-HKG-LAX: CX on the upper deck of 744
- JFK-LHR on AA: Wow! We had low expectations but the crew + service were amongst the best and the arrivals lounge in LHR was a welcome relief after fast-track through immigration.
- LHR-CAI; LHR-BKK-SYD: BA. The NGBC cabin and crew were some of the finest and quite comparable to CX transpac business class. We even scored AA elite bonus by booking the LHR-SYD as a QF codeshare!
- CNS-BNE-HGK: CX on slant lie-flat seats. Very comfortable experience.

The only reason for A- is because the SQ business class soft product is defintely a notch better than either BA or CX. We did SIN-CMB-SIN-ICN in SQ as part of an award to go with this DONE4 and these three flights had the best soft-product overall!


AAdvantage
--Overall Grade: A++

Wow! Platinum Challenge, enough said. We were able to almost double our redeemable miles just because of the Platinum Challenge! Thank you, AA!

1. Why did you get the original ticket booked in L?
2. On these kinds of tickets, it is always best to visit the office. Never try over the phone as your entire routing could get screwed up.
3. It's best not to try this at an out-station such as CAI. If you went to the CX office in Kowloon, you would get comfortable courteous service. They even took great care of my RTW change to a BA issued ticket.

I can upgrade with BA from CX.

Alliances
 

It all depends where your hub is. If you're in America and you fly mostly coach and earn upgrades or use VIP's it's tough to let go of AA which gives ExecPlat's 8 upgrades a year (without any restriction on booking class) which I've always been able to use or give to my wife with minimum hassle. That's a very valuable resource. Africa coverage is light, but that's only an issue if one is traveling there often. Cathay is top notch in Asia and they treat Emerald's very well. Access to the F lounges despite your booking class is worth a lot too.

My real issue is LHR and the transfer between terminals by bus which is an enormous and inefficient pain. However, once you make your way through the morass of British inefficiency the lounges at T5 really are great, and I don't have experience in the F lounges in *A, but it feels like the really good ones (LH HON) are restricted to F tickets only, which means they're not really an advantage of being in an alliance and rather available only to dollars spent - which trumps any loyalty rewards for any alliance.

The one big issue in OW if you're American is that you are stuck with AA for all TATL flights because of the non compete with BA. This is a real bummer and *A really beats everyone here since you can choose between CO, UA and LH to get overseas and compare fares, timetables etc.

I have been considering a move to *A because of the LHR issue - which will get worse and worse with the recent whackjob failed attempt on the DL flight Xmas Day - but loathe to figure out if I bought the correct class to use a SWU , have less of them, and get the same or inferior lounge product when connecting after a long LAX to wherever in Europe jaunt across the Pond.

At the time of ticketing, CX couldn't see any D availability even though RJ representative could see availability. I was informed that I couldn't leave any segment open because it was an e-ticket and so I was left with no choice but to book the RJ segments in L.

This is a very sage advice, but also spotlights the major issues with the alliance. This kind of RTW ticket is the Flagship product of the alliance, isn't it?

It is, and you're right. Several of the major airlines in OW (e.g. BA, AA) have special RTW hotlines to handle changes as their normal call centres and airport ticketing counters always make a mess of it. My experience with these hotlines has always been good - no hiccups for the change, nor in any of the subsequent flights. Might not have helped you this time as I don't know if RJ has a similar hotline, but it's worth knowing about for the next time. Nevertheless, this is still a "work around" approach to fixing a flaw.

Fair enough. :)

I agree that the ATI issue is very large although to be fair to OneWorld, BA and AA have tried to cooperate on two occasions and the authorities on both sides of the atlantic denied their request. Both ST and *A have therefore had a pretty large advantage in recent years as their requests for ATI were allowed. Hopefully in the next few months, this will be granted which I agree with you will be good for those of us preferring to use BA and AA on TATL flights.

I'm not sure how you got the information that QF and BA allow upgrades on each other's services. Sadly this is not the case as much as I would have liked. CX is the only carrier which operates this type of services although its pretty restrictive. I should point out that on *A the fares required to upgrade across *A are pretty expensive fares and IMHO are probably not worth blowing the miles on - i.e. bang for the buck is not high. :(

In respect to your last comment on European coverage, I do have to agree somewhat. Personally I think this was something that MA was meant to provide although sadly it has not materialised that way. LX would have been perfect but sadly that ship has now sailed. Hopefully something tangible happens sooner rather than later to sort this issue out.

I think you need to recognise that all the three alliances are marketing alliances and the level of integration is still fairly minimal. I have even had ticketing issues between LX and LH in the past and they are part of the same company.

Seating is an issue across all alliances and something I also would like to see more of. The issue you describe affects us all and I suspect it more down to the amount of programming effort required to put in all aircraft seating configurations into the host airline website. It's getting better as time passes, but there is still much to do no matter which alliance you travel on.

Finally I do have to state that there are aspects of one airline or alliance that I prefer over the other and IMHO, I would probably rate OW and *A pretty much on par. I prefer OW lounges, but some benefits on some *A carriers such as extra baggage allowance and alliance wide priority is fantastic. In fact if I had a choice between Star Alliance Gold and OneWorld Sapphire, I would almost certainly pick Star Alliance Gold. As I happen to move between several large OneWorld hubs however, the F lounge access I get as as an Emerald is still the benefit I enjoy the most. As always YMMV. :)

Not really. RTW's are a tiny, tiny percentage of tickets and revenue. The main thing for the airlines are code shares to keep people within the alliance no matter what their destination.

Whilst I agree with you on RTWs being a small fraction of overall revenue, codeshares are not about keeping people on an alliance. Codeshares are set up by carriers not serving a destination when they feel they can make additional revenue on a route they don't serve using their own code.

For example, if AA think they can sell a fair number of pax on a BA flight to CAI, they would set up a code on the BA flight negotiating how the revenue sharing arrangement would work. My understanding is that there are several revenue sharing models that can be put in place for flights coded by a codeshare partner. BA for example might suggest that the AA code entitles AA to 30% of the overall cabin and therefore AA is responsible for selling tickets up to that 30% mark although providing a significant margin (but AA also have a greater share in the risk in this model). Another alternative would be for BA to retain control and simply provide a small margin to AA for flights placed on the AA code but for BA to retain overall control of sales. There have been some excellent and more detailed posts on this topic before on both this forum as well as the QF forum if you want further information, although in essence, codeshares have little necessarily to do with alliances.

FWIW, a JSA is a much more integrated approach but discussions of JSAs are better left to other threads. :)

Perhaps I didn't explain it well, but essentially alliances are just an advanced form of codeshares. The bottom line is the same. It's all about competition within the market.

Just expanding on the issue about codeshares, here is a good example of where OW programmes work better than *A.

Take for example an AA programme member wanting to travel on BA J from LHR to SYD but wants to get the elite bonus QF offers. The AA member would book the QF coded BA flight which would entitle the AA programme member to the elite bonus yet travel on BA.

Another example would be a QF member wanting to get the elite bonus offered on BA flights on a service between LHR and HEL which is not offered on AY. The member prefers to travel AY over BA so can take a BA coded AY flight to get the elite bonus offered on BA flights.

The above examples would be not possible on *A as on *A programmes, it is the metal which counts and not the code, not to mention the issue surrounding how fare class codes translate between carriers (*A carriers are not so good on the fare class harmonisation side). To expand on this, a BD member wanting to take a BD coded flight operated by SQ metal for example in J class between LHR and SIN would find they would still only get the SQ J class COS of 1.5 x compared to the 2.0 x offered by BD itself.

Just some food for thought.