Does United Have the Ability to Expunge a *A Member?
 

Does UA or LH (Founding members) have the ability to expunge a *A member?

I think they did that to Mexicana, didn't they?

They should do that to Singapore next.

Is Singapore really feeding its Asia-US traffic to United for UA to want to keep it? I'm sick of SQ's unwillingness to open ANY premium cabin awards to Star Alliance. Forget about starnet blocking, there is not a single premium cabin SQ award to be found when I search through the ANA for the 100th time. Why is SQ allowed to block all of its premium cabin awards?

Now, before you say anything, there are far better airlines that provide better amenities in *A and they don't mind releasing their premium cabins to the Star Alliance Pool. ANA, for instance, always has business available for redemption. Though rare, I have able to redeem ANA F. LH often has F available. Asiana almost always has F available. Turkish also has suites, and they release these awards to Star Alliance. Thai is also available often. But SQ? Nothing. And, SQ premium cabins are no longer new. They have been around for more than 2-3 years. It's no longer an excuse.

We all criticize starnet blocking, but SQ is doing award blocking, which is even worse.

Does United really have any incentive to keep SQ in the alliane? SQ needs to be expunged as far as I'm concerned :mad:

I think Mexicana left voluntarily. Varig was kicked out, after declaring bankruptcy and shrinking its network beyond any utility to *A.

There's no possibility SQ is going to be kicked out for its award practices. If anything UA must be thrilled to not have to pay any money to SQ for award seats.

At some point, I would love to see the credit/debit ledgers on interal Star Alliance
workings, and cash settlements.

For each airline there would be 4 entries . For example:

UA - miles awarded to other carriers members
UA - miles earned by MP members on other airlines
UA- miles redeemed by MP members on other airlines
UA - miles redeemed by other carriers' members on UA

I am sure that only the net/net difference would be settled in cash, and I would
tend to assume that the differences would be minimal overall.
However, as I said, I would love to see actual figures.

If I remember correctly, Mexicana left after United declined to renew its codeshare arrangement with them after their big push into Mexico, which left Mexicana in violation of *A rules.

Some partners--LH, for example--maintained codesharing arrangements with Mexicana separately from the *A relationship post-departure, though.

Timothy

Let's give SQ to Oneworld and we'll take Cathay :D Sounds like a good trade to me^

Close , but the wrong way around . MX declined to renew their codeshare agreement with UA rather than the other way around .

+1 ^

I quite like SQ. Specially since I fly out of Australia I have 2 choices to Europe in *A (If I don't want to back track via NZ). The best of the available choices are SQ.

Also if as you state above you can get the same service to the same destinations via other airlines why does it even matter what they do? If you don't like them don't fly them.. their loss. I would prefer to fly SQ on a 21hr to London from Aus than any other airline in *A (specially in economy or even in business).

I fly Y, so I would like them to stay.

Sorry, now that you have Air China and Shanghai Airlines in this part of the world, that sounds very unlikely :D.

I just booked an award on SQ business this AM from SFO-HKG this morning.

There are rumblings in China about CX and CA merger... something supposedly being pushed by the Chinese government. So maybe *A will gain CX, or lose CA. Both are good things.. :p

2 choices to Europe on *A? :confused:

I think you are referring to SQ and TG, correct? I often travel to Europe on *A but never on those two carriers. Here are a few more options:

1. OZ. Better service than SQ with a slightly inferior hard product. But often cheaper as well, especially in business
2. CA. Nothing to write home about, but cheap
3. AC. Long way around but sometimes good fares and good C seats
4. UA Long way around, lie flat C.
5. LH, LX (with UA, TG, QF, SQ "feeder"). One of the cheapest C and F option from Australia
6. NZ You mentioned them but they are the best option in C within *A.

So there are far more options and SQ is a rather mediocre one IMHO.


Losing CA would be bad. FM won't last long and without CA there would be a huge hole in the network. And I would need to look for a new *A carrier to get 2 people in C from SYD to JFK for less than A$9k.

SQ may be maveric in many ways particularly relating to award seats in premium cabins but from Europe to Australia and New Zealand they provide more choice than anyone else including NZ and QF. Without them, there would be a huge hole and if they went to Oneworld, it would stitch up Australia big time.

Getting awards is nice but they are after all a consequence of miles of business travel for most of us and I would not want my business travel made more difficult because SQ was thrown out of *A. From what I've seen of the premium cabins they don't need to fill the seats anyway!

There is a good reason why SQ were granted all those exceptions, such as issues with premium awards, Star Alliance ticket endorsement waiver, etc. Star Alliance needs SQ more than SQ needs Star Alliance. End of story. @:-)

Yes, it is difficult to redeem premium awards on SQ, but if SQ leaves Star Alliance, the probability of redeeming premium awards on SQ will be even lower. :p Remember the saying? It can always be worse. :D