But on the otherhand... for people who don't fly very much and just want to earn Destination miles, ST is one of the worst players in there... I'm trying to look at which program to join, I'm flying for the first time Long Haul (BRU-JNB-CPT) with ST, and I want those miles to count! But with FlyingBlue, you get very poor mileage accrual in discounted fares, and you can't stop hearing around these forum that Delta's program is called SkyPesos!!

My question really is what to join. I think i will fly quite a few time in the future with ST so that it's worth joining a program, but not enough if I start earning 25% or nothing everytime I fly.
Apart from DL, FB there isn't much other choice I think to me than CSA's OK, which people recommend, but they're accrual is a bit worse than that of DL. It seems the good deal with them is to earn tiers with very few flight segments, but then what do I do with a czech tier if I don't fly CSA?

Can someone help me out here... which program do you reckon I should join? How bad is Delta in all fairness? - won't they be tempted to Join *A?

Thanks a lot

Well, I think all three alliances lack from consistency in respect of their domestic product - which includes cross-border European traffic. They just don't dare to impose any requirements on domestic traffic. Consider TAM (JJ) in domestic - dreadful seat pitch; American (AA) in domestic coach - horrific food/drink offers - but very much similar to Delta (DL), I'm afraid.

No, DL will not be joining *A. They are one of the strong carriers in ST. They are not going to give that up to compete with UA/CO in *A.

That said, have you already purchased your tickets to CPT? If not, maybe you would consider flying with a different alliance (if you are looking only at mileage redemption--if you are looking at elite status, DL is very good within the US, but not sure of your travel patterns).

Yeah, they are going to join *, just so that you can get miles on your one heavily discounted long haul ticket, they do that for all passengers all the time.

It would be nice if we had another us domestic option for st, even a full partnership with Alaska is virtually useless to those of us who life on the east coast. The loss of Continental was a huge down fall for ST and it makes it very hard for those of us who only have limited control on which airlines we fly to stay loyal to st when there are so many more options available us domestic on *A

OH please, in the grand scheme of thiongs CO was a ST member for about 5 minutes, while I flew them a few times internationally, and do miss their PEK and HKG-EWR routes, the loss of their domestic feed means pretty much little to anyone in the grand scheme of things.

I guess that depends on where you are based. As a NYer, the lost of CO took a huge chunk out of my options. That said, DL's expansion at NY still leaves them well-positioned in the NY market.

Other than perhaps frequent Texas flights, especially IAH, I really cannot thing of any major US city that is served by CO, that is not served by DL from JFK,LGA or EWR.

All alliances have poor carriers, and all alliance have excellent carriers.

When I think of terrible carriers, I think of the following:

Egyptair
Air India
Malev


When I think of excellent carriers I think of the following:

Korean
Cathy Pacific
Swiss

Skyteam is very strong in china. Star is very strong in SE asia.

Sometimes it's about added frequency/options. I'm not saying NYers lost so many destinations (you can add ANU--not a big deal--and GVA and EDI--quite unfortunate-- to that list--not fair to just list US flights), but NYers did lose a back-up plan.

Interesting analysis on the alliance:

http://www.bnet.com/blog/airline-bus...-airlines/2539

No disrespect to the author of this article (and indeed I agree with many of his conclusions) but much of his branding comments strike me as very US-centric. From a European point of view, I see no problem whatsoever with selling SU as a great airline partner and am far more worried about dealing with such 'great' partners as US or UA in *A which, seen from Europe, seem to have a fairly miserable product.

As pointed out by the author, KE has become an outstanding airline on the whole slowly catching up on some of the world's very best at the time airlines such as SQ and MH have been cutting some cost; and surprise of all surprises, even AZ is beefing up its product in a way I would have never bet on. SU is conceivably the best airline in Europe, miles above BA, AF, or LH by any standard. In fact, even UX (and certainly KQ) have progressed very significantly over the past 3-4 years.

I'm worried about the current quality of AR but maybe all the examples above point out to the fact that perhaps, after all, Skyteam is in fact between than OW and *A at enforcing minimal common standards? As mentioned by typhoon and others, SAS and Egyptair or Iberia and Malev mean that IMHO, *A or OW can hardly afford to give quality lessons to Skyteam.

True for US but not so sure about UA. In International business, UA now has started to install lie-flat seats (something that AF has conspicuously declined to do) and the domestic product is no worse than DL and better on p.s. routes. The standard economy product is pretty c..p and even worse than most airlines as a result of being packed like sardines due to e+ config, but, otoh, upgrade to e+ can be done for a fairly small amount. I personally have never forgiven them for removing the complimentary e+ from *G elites and therefore avoid them but, objectively, they are far from being the worst North American carrier.

US, though, are another matter although even they are moving to a lie-flat product.

I agree UA is not the worst in domestic C and F but it's deteriorating. p.s. used to be great at first but used them this year in First and it was so underwhelming. Food has become way less good than DL (which only operate two class), and so were headphones, duvets, pillows, drinks, and service. So yes it's great to get lie-flat on a domestic flight but that was the only advantage here. UA long haul in Y has become really poor, much worse than DL (which has improved a bit) in my view. Long haul UA C is ok but again it's the food quality that I mind, and it has gone down quite a lot recently. On the other hand, indeed, US long-haul is (finally) improving quite a bit, something I never expected to happen and welcome cheerfully!!

Anyway, you are absolutely right, I agree that 'miserable' is too tough for UA, but in short, I think that they are less good on average than many of the usually-denounced 'weak partners' of ST such as the 'new' Alitalia and Aeroflot. And I agree with you that AF's blatant refusal to consider flat seats with their new long haul product puts them at risk of also falling behind the said airlines.

It's interesting to read all of you bash IB. Have any of you actually flown the airline anytime recently?

Personally I quite like then, especially on short-haul in J where they are arguably better than BA.