There are 3 major airline alliances: Star Alliance, Oneworld, and SkyTeam.
Star Alliance has 28 members, Oneworld 15 members, and SkyTeam 20 member airlines. Airline alliances are partnerships between airlines that allow them to implement codesharing flights (for example when you book a ticket through United but it’s operated by Air Canada), access more countries and destinations and thus create better, broader and more efficient networks (which also enables you to book one seamless itinerary to are far-flung locale through just one airline’s website), among other things.
So why are they important to churning? Because miles from just one airline in an alliance allows you to redeem for award tickets on all other airlines in that alliance! Great example:
Say you want to go from San Francisco (SFO) to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (DAR). You have 100,000 United miles (courtesy of the United MileagePlus Explorer 50,000-mile bonus and the Chase Sapphire Preferred 50,000-point bonus). All you have to do is log on to United’s website, click ‘Search Award Travel’ and type in SFO as your departure city and DAR as your destination (and choose your dates of course). And voila! Up pop flights from SFO to DAR by way of Istanbul on Turkish Airlines or SFO to Dulles (IAD) to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (ADD) to DAR. All for 80,000 miles roundtrip, plus taxes/fees (usually around $45-$80).
United doesn’t fly to Tanzania with it’s own planes and staff but since it’s a member of Star Alliance you can redeem United miles on any airline that’s a member!
Pretty cool right?
The same goes for American Airlines and it’s Oneworld partners and Delta and it’s SkyTeam members. Want to fly first class from LAX to Hong Kong (HKG) on Cathay Pacific? Just find award ticket availability on Cathay Pacific’s website, note the dates and flight numbers, and call American Airlines’ reservations office to book with miles!
