Star Alliance 5th anniversary offer
 

Don't know if this was brought up before. I could not find a reference to it during a search.
According to the *A site the *A members are offering a 55,555 mile bonus if you fly 5 *A airlines in 55 days.
See http://www.star-pr.com/aweb/n.asp?ID=aaaaaaaaaaaaabm
and http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum82/HTML/000796.html
If this is true UA should be announcing details very soon.

I wonder what the most cost efficient way to do this out of Chicago is? Not that I'm planning it--but it would be interesting to see.
I assume you could use UA, MX, AC--while to get two more you'd have to cross the water.

I have been told by my sources that United will be joining in. I have been mulling over this offer since last month (I got an advanced heads-up -- see my post in Mileage Run from March). I can't seem to make this work in an economical way leaving from the U.S.

Not sure if 55,555 miles will be worth it. Probably will do it if it was like the 100,000 oneworld bonus they had several years back. Best way might be to head to Europe given the larger concentration of Star carriers there.

[This message has been edited by seawolf (edited 04-16-2002).]

SK and LH fly out of Chicago, also.

That would be my thought also. But does anyone know whether UA will require one of the 5 flights to be on their metal to post to a MP account?
John

Anyone know if RTW counts, and is it five segments or tickets because you can fly SIN-FRA-JFK on LH/SQ or just SQ on one ticket? So I wonder if that is one or two?

Do not forget VARIG.. and maybe some have intra america flights? Very interesting idea...

5 seems like a smart choice, since no region seems to have more than 4 carriers in it...unless you count all the Austrian sub-carriers (which, I bet, they won't).

Am ending a trip on the 14th of May - if this all comes together, I might extend it by a day or so. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

<G>

Within Europe, you can fly:

OS
LH
SQ
TG
RG
BD

Planning this for a Star-rtw, I am tempted to include more (all?) Star-ff-prgrams and qualify in several(all?) ff-programs for the bonus.

The LH promotion (so far the only one which is fully published) 'only' asks for one segment per Star-carrier (no code-shares), no return trips/-tickets necessary (these rules are the same as for 'similar' Star-promotions years ago.

As it is now sure, that in one way or the other, (see the announcement on the StarAlliance-homepage) all Star-carriers will offer similar (minor adjusted, but hopefully with the same time-frame?) promotions, I think the best to really profit from each other is to follow (and contribute to) closely the thread in the Star forum here (and not so much under the individual airlines).

Exactly my plan:

Buy five return tickets within Europe and then split the points between LH and UA - unless BD offer something really good.

You should be able to do it more efficiently than with five round trips. For example, LHR (BD) CDG (LH) MUC (OS) VIE v/v on one ticket. Gives you two segments on each of three carriers. If Tyrolean counts separately you may be able to add a "VO" leg after VIE for four carriers.

Interesting idea -- is there any way to do this entirely within the Americas? You could fly AC, MX, UA, VG -- but what about the 5th airline? Does LH have any fifth-freedom flights within the Americas?

LH flies BUE-SCL daily and AFAIK they have local traffic rights.