One World needs better partners
 

I have f.f. points in AA but it seems difficult to use them for overseas flights some times. Star Alliance seems to be growing and partnered with so many airline options. When going to Europe I find that the partners I can only work with AA and British Air. Why has One World lost so many of it's previous partners??

It's only lost 2 so far, Canadian Airlines in 2000 when it was taken over by Air Canada, and Aer Lingus last year because of it's shift to low cost carrier status. Star Alliance has lost three, Ansett, Varig and Mexicana (which is about to join OW), SkyTeam's about to lose Continental.

Oneworld doesn't have as many options in Europe as the other two, but what doesn't work for you works better for others. It has better coverage than the other two in South America and Australia for starters.

They lost Swiss Air too. I'm trying to plan a trip to Johannesburg with a stop over in Zurich for a few days. They're saying I need to go from Zurich BACK TO HEATHROW before flying to Johannesburg. All the best options seem to be with Star Alliance carriers. I want to stopover somewhere, anywhere but the UK.

Iberia also gets to Johannesburg from Zurich, no?

Swiss was never a ONEWORLD member.

Regarding flights to Europe, current ONEWORLD carriers that operate between the US and Europe and intra-Europe are British, Iberia, Finnair and Málev. Brussels Airlines is an AA partner and you can use them if you are using miles for an AA All-Partner Award. So that's a total of 6 (incl. AA) airlines to choose from for US-Europe routings.

That's correct - Swiss Air had a partnership with AA and BA but (after the mega-bankruptcy) Swiss never became a member of oneworld.

Brussels doesn't actually fly US-Europe, but maybe you're talking about flying SN intra-Europe as part of a whole trip? Your point is a valid one, though: Iberia and BA will get you anywhere you want to go in Europe, and Finnair and Malév are good specialty carriers in the northern and eastern regions. Oneworld could definitely be beefed up around the globe, but Europe is really the last place from which I'd like to see the next partner (that is, of course, unless it's SN, but that's only because of their African destinations.)

Thank you for your suggestions. I didn't know that Swiss was never part of OneWorld. In my case it worked well when I redeemed AA miles for a flight to Zurich. I definitely need to use AA miles to get to JNB via some airline that flies from Europe but prefer not to use BA.

I would make a point of asking an agent to search IB inventory via MAD, if LHR is unacceptable.

Friend just informed me that he used AA miles to fly on Turkish Air last year . A stopover in Istanbul would be wonderful if this works out. I didn't realize that AA and Turkish Air were partners.

Not a member of OneWorld but they used to be an "other partner" for AA (couldn't redeem a OneWorld award) - this arrangement ended earlier this year (announced last year).

https://www.aa.com/aa/i18nForward.do...lines/main.jsp

They were but are not anymore. I suggest you check out aa.com and the all-partner award pages for the partners. You can connect through Europe on any of a number of carriers, but the only two partners you can use to get to Jo'burg are BA and Iberia.

He could also look in to El Al it might be bit if detour but i know plenty of people that fly from europe to south africa via DXB and Doha.

Yup, we have it pretty good over here at *A.

Except for South America that is...

Not without two tickets. He can only connect through Europe. While Israel used to be in Europe as far as AA was concerned, it was changed to the Middle East.

Sorry to hear Turkish Air is not an option....sounds like another airline that once reciprocated with AA bites the dust. I miss being able to redeem AA miles on Swiss.

It seems that BA has a monopoly going with One World in Europe. I hope in the near future some European airlines drop *Alliance and Sky Team and switch to One World instead of the other way around (as it seems is happening).

How do you say that with Iberia, Finnair, and Malev, especially with Iberia, if you discount those other two?

Yes, if we're going to talk about oneworld monopolies, it might be fair to talk about AA in North America, LAN in South America (at least intra-South America), and QF in Oceania, but there are four airlines in Europe, one of the smallest of the world's continents.

Four OW airlines fly to JNB: BA via LHR, IB via MAD and CX via HKG or QF via SYD. Have you considered going via Asia?

IIRC Swiss Air was in talks with OW and they had already started to migrate IT systems and everything for membership. When they got bought out buy LH they were snapped out of the arms of OW and got into the arranged marriage with *A.

This is because TK has just joined *A...... :rolleyes:

not quite

actually Swiss announced back in June 2004 that they had decided not to proceed with OW membership

http://www.swiss.com/web/EN/about_sw..._20040603.aspx

it would be another 9 months until the negotiations with LH

http://www.swiss.com/web/EN/about_sw..._20050313.aspx


their decision not to proceed with OW membership had nothing to do with LH and apparently everything to do with BA

I only heard that they were still talking about joining OW when talks with LH started and that they had done a lot of IT work already. Even now the LH and LX IT systems are not very integrated.

Not if you have to use UA. UA is the worst airline by far by many peoples' standards, not just mine.
To quote someone else on FT:
"I would rather walk or swimm than fly UA"
Count me in in that number.

No arguments here about UA.

I get close to seven figures in Amex MR points a year which I transfer to Aeroplan. Then I redeem F awards on NH, SQ, LH, TG, LQ, etc.

I use my AA miles for OW awards to S.A. on LAN.

Excluding domestic carriers, *A is vastly superior to OW or ST.

QF is only monopoly in Australia, or monopoly in Oceania in the sense it is the sole oneworld member based in Oceanai; NZ is the monopoly that covers the islands (intra-islands, AKL-islands and LAX-islands) and it's in Star.

Isn't Air Pacific (Fiji's flag carrier) a partner of AA? oneworld has very decent Asian members - CX and JL. Too bad CX don't fly between USA and Europe like SQ does JFK-FRA or AI JFK-LHR:D

I think JL does Vancouver-Mexico City and/or NYC-Sao Paolo?

I doubt you will get seats on miles to JNB very easily - unless it is in Y. There are some decent net fares from USA -ZRH-JNB on swiss that may be worth while rather than using miles.

I love JL, but they use the old F cabins on these routes. They have also become very stingy with F rewards seats much like CX.

I've read on multiple threads here that first and biz class award seats are readily available LHR-CPT or LHR-Jo'Burg, just have to plan in advance.

I never thought about getting to South Africa going west instead of east, maybe I'll look into that. Anything to avoid connections in LHR.

We booked in October and got two First class awards on BA LHR-JNB-CPT-LHR for mid to late January using AA miles. Business class (which I originally looked for) wasn't available.

Out of interest why "anywhere but the UK"? Most of the issues with T5 are now resolved and (as a glance at the BA forum will show you) therre is a realtively high level of satisfaction with the systems.

I don't believe it's related to T5 , LHR or any UK airport.

It's related to the UK APD where it's basically up to an additional £80 to depart the UK unless in transit.

Fair point, which as someone who has little choice but to pay APD I had forgotten. I wonder whether HMT has ever done a cost benefit analysis of the monetary benefits of APD against the lost tax take on people like the OP discouraged from visiting.