I'm helping my friend's colleagues to maximise their travel rewards. They will be looking to join a Sky Team program that has the best redemption rates. Most of their travel will be booked in cheap Y.

One other issue is there is a mixture of Uk/Europe based people, US based people and Canadian based people. Each group are primarily doing regional flights (e.g US People would flight a lot on Delta), but there will be occasional international long haul flights in Y on a variety of airlines.

I've got Star Alliance sorted, can anyone help for Sky Team?

Much appreciated.

Previously I would have suggested Czech Airlines' OK Plus program, but the airline is due to be privatized this autumn and Air France/KLM is one of the two contenders. If they win it, they'll likely integrate OK Plus' award levels with their own.

NWA is pretty good, been very happy with them overall, however, they are being taken over with Delta so not sure in the end what will happen....still probably an ok choice...i'm so far sticking with them....

For sure, Avoid Flying Blue program (programm for AF and KLM), due to the drastic modifications in particular with eraning rules for Y tickets.

For the North American based ones, I'd say DL/NW for sure, even though the program is getting less valueable than before, its still going to be one of the better Skyteam programs left without massive restrictions on earning on cheap Y fares.

For the European based group, will they accumulate enough miles to redeem at least annually? If so then I'd go with OK plus for now and see what happens later. DL currently has nasty fees for European originating redemptions so it doesn't look so good for them there.

I haven't been watching to see what is going on with AZ since the merger but if they start to look more stable then I don't think their program was too terrible. Also may be worth looking at SU and AM, they both have decent elite programs but not sure about earnings and redemtions.

I would like to know what you have sorted Star Alliance as I am a AF/KL Y flyer who needs to find a new > 70.000miles a year home with an FF program!