Oneworld
 

The Swiss tabloid "Blick" writes today that Swiss has decided to join Oneworld.

http://www.blick.ch/PB2G/PB2GA/pb2ga.htm?snr=25487

Several other newspapers were reporting this as well. Hope it's true!

But what would this mean for Qualiflyer??

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I Love New York

A major improvement??

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

The Qualiflyer program could still 'survice' (with some rules changed/adapted). Most one-world-members have their own Frequent-Flier programs.

Yes, but the other 1W members don't have FFP's that they share with a bunch of other airlines who are not members of 1W.

I still think that Qualiflyer is the superior programme, in terms of collecting miles and what you can do with free tickets. It will be interesting to see what happens, but lets not jump to conclusions. No official announcement has yet been made.

The Teletext pages of Swiss TV (SF1) said today:

"The president of the new airline SWISS, Pieter Bouw, indicated in his presentation in Zurich that SWISS could join Oneworld, the airline alliance headed by BA and AA."

... and Basler Zeitung further about Oneworld:

"Bouw indicated also that Swiss could select [...] Oneworld. He did not want to call the partner by name, but his description of the advantages and drawbacks of such an alliance pointed at Oneworld. The chances for a cooperation between Swiss and [...] Star Alliance are smaller than the possibility to work together with Air France/SkyTeam or Oneworld, Bouw said. Not only the European but also the US partner has a role in the alliance issue. In this respect AA offers the greatest potential for a cooperation."

(Basler Zeitung website 12 March)

See also the March 12 posting http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum83/HTML/000890.html by Terenz

[This message has been edited by timol (edited 03-12-2002).]

One of the major advantages of the large alliances are the savings the airlines get from pooling resources. Good examples of this are the soon to be opened OW lounge at LAX and the OW CTO/check in counters at EZE.

Not sure it's a relevant point. For instance, you can yet accrue miles on SR and ASIANA if you've enrolled into AsiaMiles (CX FFP), and on SR if you're part of AAdvantage on certain routes (indeed good reasons for SR to join OW). Plus members of BA ExClub too can accrue miles on some exotic airlines not members of OW.

To me, being part of OW would be a big advantage for Swiss and Qualiflyer (needless to say qualiflyer members as well), * not a very intelligent choice considering LH and OS. And Swiss, please don't do your first mistake (and the last one I'm afraid) by joining SkyTeam !

The problem is not miles but status miles. Will miles earned for flying SR that you credit to Qualiflyer count toward OW status or toward TravelClub membership? If they had their own FF programme it wouldn't matter, now it does. My guess is they will withdraw from Qualiflyer and start a separate FF programme if/when they join an alliance.

if SWISS will withdraw from Qualiflyer (they might - yes) than it is reasonable and probable, that they will, for a limited time, offer a conversion of miles and status.

I hope that they join with one og the three groupings soon. Since SN and LX withdrew from my local airport (EDI) I have to fly elsewhere before using my Qualiflyer points.

As AF, BA, BD and LH all fly from EDI, I don't really mind which although if they go one world I bet you wont be able to earn points on BA cheap fares.

Stephen

But if SWISS withdraw from Qualiflyer, then surely Qualiflyer will be grounded?

Qualiflyer would be done if SWISS withdrew. But honestly: all I care about are my miles. As long as they let you take your miles to the new FF program (that has a reasonable number of partners), that's fine with me. They would be stupid to make all those frequent flyers mad.