I have never been recognized as *G in dozens of LH/LX flights. Nor on any other *A carrier (TG, OZ, SQ, OS, CM, AV, and others I'm sure). Heck, I'm shocked when UA employees thank me for being 1K (unlike DL, where Platinum status is routinely commented on).

Overall, I do find *G pretty valuable. Just don't expect anything beyond the published benefits and you'll be fine :)

Slot pooling? Something that competition authorities in the US & EU would be very interested to learn of.

It seems to be a common practice that a *A airline that is big at an airport sublets slots to smaller *A airlines. See Li and Netessine, 2011.

I didn't write MRO, I wrote the pooling of purchases of parts or services. For example, *A buys ground handling services jointly which they claim significantly reduces costs.

The reallocation of slots in a secondary market (swapping, subletting, selling) is allowed under IATA and EU rules as far as I understand, as long as the slot coordinator is informed.

Of course, as *A does that, it boils down to slot sharing.

oliver, often1,

Let me try to make my point differently. I have the impression you guys have some expertise in management or business. But you're thinking a lot about semantics. Remember your Management or Business Strategy 101 class?

Integration is nothing that's polar, either existing or non-existing. Instead, it happens on a scale. You can buy a product from a supplier and frequently switch suppliers when another one is offering a better deal. That is close to the one extreme, i.e., using the market. The other extreme would be to fully integrate. Say, you buy the supplier or the supplier buys your company. But there are many stages in between. E.g., you have a long-running contract with one supplier.

I think *A airlines have some forms of coordination which makes them not fully independently operating competitors. Look at ground handling. Usually, that's shared. Also, frequently all *A airlines on a given airport use the same terminal. I don't think it's important whether there's an alliance-level contract that specifies such sharing of resources. Even if there's an individual contract specifying the pooling of ground handling only between the *A carriers serving a particular airport, there's not much difference. Because you have such a contract at most airports served by more than one *A carrier. Not having it is the exception rather than the rule.

So I say, in practice, there is a lot of non-market coordination in various areas. Therefore, I think Often1's statement " *A is just a marketing alliance" is too strong an exaggeration for my taste.

There are only two tiers (Elite and ElitePlus) at SkyTeam that the alliance recognizes, even though some member airlines might have additional levels.

well.. The only airline that has recognized my *G status is Shenzhen Airline, which is an airline not so many people here have the chance to fly with. The ground staff will block the front three rows for *G and their own elites only. On board the flight attendant will greet you with a bottle of water, blanket, and local newspapers. If you are foreign passengers, they will provide you English newspapers.

Woohoo! So getting *G is worth it after all! :D

Air China does the same.

Not in my (limited) experience.

Greeting to non-CA *Gs is not SOP for CA. It does happen from time to time when they are not overwhelmed by their own elites. I have had it a few times but those were surely exceptions rather than routine.

At the end of the day, you home program will almost always treat you better than a *A partner.

I don't think *P is a good idea...what would they give you for *P that you don't get for *G....I feel like if they were to do that *G would just become like the new useless Marriott Gold that's only marginally better than silver but still basically useless.

Please explain :) I had to spend around 20k on LH to get SEN.