[vikflys]

Thanks Ian for the insight. I have been doing marketing research on FFP benefits of alliances for customers. To my understanding, not a lot is known about FFP benefits for consumers in details. I will be launching a new survey on this matter this week. I am hoping all our fellow members can participate in this survey and provide their opinions on this matter. Hope we all can benefit from this survey

Thanks again
Vik

[IanFromHKG]

I that I true, Vik, I continue to be amazed that so many travellers – even frequent ones – aren’t aware of all the benefits available to them. One only has to look at the number of posts on FlyerTalk where people ask about benefits

However, as has been referenced in this thread, it is important to be aware of the distinction between:
(a) alliance-wide benefits such as lounge access
(b) carve-outs from alliance-wide benefits (such as the fact that under oneworld, members of QF and AA site cards are not able to access domestic lounges since they offer paid equivalents and don’t want to undermine that revenue stream
(c) additional benefits offered by individual members of alliances to their own members (such as the anytime lounge access I have on CX)
(d) additional membership tiers that individual alliance members have that don’t correspond to alliance tiers (BA’s GGL, CCR and Premier, for example)
(e) mileage reward programmes – these I don’t regard (largely speaking) as being an alliance benefit in and of themselves. The ability to earn and burn across alliance is, of course, an alliance benefit, but each reward programme is so different that they can’t easily be compared across alliances – and many airlines offer reduced earning on flights operated by other carriers (CX has, for instance, just changed to a points-based system similar to Avios rather than the mileage-based system they used before – so the MH return trip I just did will not earn an effective ? bonus for MH from April (before I would get c. 20,000 miles for flying MH due to the longer routing, as opposed to c. 15,000 for flying direct on CX – after the change the earning will be the same despite the additional flights). As another example, above Martyn refers to the ease of using Avios on shorthaul flights – great, but if you are in another oneworld member’s programmes you may not find that the same applies. Frankly, although – as I said – earning-and-burning is an alliance-wide benefit, the utility of that is highly contingent on the reward programme in question so an alliance-to-alliance comparison seems to me to be virtually impossible

Hope that helps!

[KSHaggag]

I would add that many customers ,upon joining a specific FFP of an airline belonging to an alliance cannot tell in advance whether such FFP within that alliance is the most beneficial for him within that alliance given the huge disparities and the discrepancies in earning/burning ,let alone the threshold required to reach a higher tier which varies widely e.g. within Star Alliance .

[IanFromHKG]

Which is where Flyertalk comes in – the alliance threads there have useful comparison information

[HHS0001]

Interesting discussions, however I see a major issue not tackled here: tier benefits on code share between airlines of different alliances.. For example I traveled last weekend HEL/CDG on AY (part of KL ticket CAI/AMS/HEL/CDG/CAI) and was refused entry to their lounge in Helsinki despite flying full-fare business class and being OneWorld Emerald. Their claim my flight sold as AF flight number so they get the money not AY! Furthermore this sector was not credited for by DL nor did AY accept that I credit the miles to my RJ.

[KSHaggag]

HHS0001,

I AM SO THANKFUL to you to have raised this topic that is far from transparent : Airlines are always proud to announce codeshare agreements they have embarked on but when it comes to the real important details that matter to us ,Frequent Flyers they tend to be far from explicit : you fly with one airline on a flight operated by a partner but you get your ( status ) miles NOWHERE !..THAT S why I am always cautious about this and ALWAYS avoid codeshare flights UNLESS both the operating AND the marketing carrier belong to the SAME Alliance !

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