Airline Alliances Explained: Maximize Your Points (Simple Guide)

Ever wonder how people use points from one airline’s loyalty program to book flights on a completely different airline? Or how having status with one airline can sometimes get you perks like lounge access when flying another? The answer often lies in airline alliances. If you’re new to the world of points and miles, understanding alliances is crucial – it’s like finding a secret key to unlock vastly more travel possibilities.

What Are Airline Alliances?

At its core, an airline alliance is simply a partnership agreement between a group of airlines. They agree to cooperate on various levels, which generally benefits passengers by:

• Offering more destinations through combined route networks.
• Allowing passengers to earn frequent flyer miles/points on partner flights within the alliance.
• Recognizing elite status across member airlines (e.g., lounge access, priority boarding).
• Providing smoother connections and baggage handling between member airlines.

While these are all nice perks, the most powerful benefit for points and miles travellers is this: You can often use the points or miles from one airline’s loyalty program to book award seats (free flights using points) on other airlines within the same alliance.

This opens up a world of opportunities that wouldn’t be possible if you only focused on direct airline partners.

The Three Major Airline Alliances

While airlines can have individual partnerships, most major global carriers belong to one of three dominant alliances. Getting familiar with these is the first step:

Star Alliance

The largest of the three alliances, boasting a massive global network. Key members include:

• United Airlines
• Air Canada
• Lufthansa
• Turkish Airlines
• Singapore Airlines
• ANA (All Nippon Airways)
• SWISS
• Avianca
• TAP Air Portugal
• And many others… (ITA Airways is also in the process of joining)

Oneworld

Known for having some highly-regarded premium airlines as members. Key members include:

• American Airlines
• Alaska Airlines
• British Airways
• Cathay Pacific
• Qatar Airways
• Qantas
• Iberia
• Finnair
• Japan Airlines (JAL)
• And others… (Oman Air and Fiji Airways are set to join soon, with Hawaiian Airlines expected later)

SkyTeam

A strong alliance with significant presence across the Atlantic and Pacific. Key members include:

• Delta Air Lines
• Air France
• KLM
• Virgin Atlantic (joined recently)
• Korean Air
• Aeromexico
• SAS (Scandinavian Airlines – joined recently)
• And several others…

(Note: Alliance memberships can and do change over time – for example, SAS recently moved to SkyTeam. However, these three alliances encompass most of the world’s major international airlines.)

How Partner Award Bookings Work

So, how exactly do you use points from one airline’s program (like Air Canada’s Aeroplan) to book a flight on another airline (like United or Lufthansa)? It works through partner award bookings.

Here’s the basic idea:

1. Airlines Release Seats: Each airline decides how many award seats on its own flights it will make available for booking by its alliance partners. These are often referred to as “saver level” award seats. This means the number of seats available to book through a partner might be less than what the airline offers to its own frequent flyer members using their miles.
2. You Book Through a Partner Program: You search for award flights directly on the website of the loyalty program whose points you want to use (e.g., you search on Air Canada’s Aeroplan site even if you want to fly on United).
3. Partner Rules Apply: This is the most critical point! When you find and book that United flight using your Aeroplan points, you are subject to Aeroplan’s rules and points pricing, not United’s. Each airline program has its own award chart (or dynamic pricing model) and its own rules regarding routing, stopovers, fees, and change/cancellation policies for partner bookings.

This difference in rules and pricing between partner programs is exactly what creates opportunities to save points or book tickets on airlines even if your points don’t directly transfer to that airline.

For example, take a look at this United flight from EWR – FRA

Chase Ultimate Rewards and BILT points are the only two currencies that transfer to United at a 1:1 ratio. So what can someone with American Express points do? Are they out of luck? Not exactly — since United is part of the Star Alliance, they can search for that same flight through other Star Alliance airlines that Amex points transfer to. Air Canada Aeroplan is one example, where the same flight shows up with the pricing below.

Based on Aeroplan’s pricing, economy class is more expensive, while business class costs the same number of points but comes with higher taxes and fees. However, Aeroplan frequently offers 20% transfer bonuses from Amex and Chase, whereas United has never offered a transfer bonus. If you take advantage of one of these bonuses, not only can you book the same flight through Aeroplan, but you can actually do it for fewer points in business class than someone using United miles!

Why Alliances Are Your Secret Weapon

Understanding how to leverage alliances gives you two massive advantages:

Benefit 1: Unlocking More Destinations & Airlines (Access)

Alliances allow you to effectively bypass the limitation of which points transfer where. Many valuable airline programs (like United MileagePlus) don’t partner directly with major credit card transferable points programs like American Express Membership Rewards. But if you know the alliances, you can still often book flights on those airlines.

• Example: Let’s say you want to fly United Airlines to Europe. You have American Express points, but Amex points do not transfer directly to United MileagePlus. However:
  • Amex points do transfer to Air Canada Aeroplan and Avianca LifeMiles.
  • Both Air Canada and Avianca are Star Alliance partners with United.
  • Therefore, you can transfer your Amex points to Aeroplan or LifeMiles, and then use those programs to search for and book that exact United flight (assuming United has made award seats available to its Star Alliance partners).

This technique vastly expands the range of airlines you can book using your flexible credit card points.

Benefit 2: Finding the Best Price (Price Shopping)

Because each partner program uses its own award chart and rules, the number of points required for the exact same seat on the exact same flight can vary significantly depending on which partner program you book through. This allows you to “shop around” within an alliance for the best deal.

• Example: You want to fly the highly-regarded Turkish Airlines Business Class from North America to Istanbul. Turkish Airlines is in the Star Alliance. Instead of just checking the price using Turkish Airlines’ own Miles&Smiles program, you should also check how many points it costs using other Star Alliance programs you can access (perhaps via transferring points from your credit cards):
  • Air Canada Aeroplan
  • United MileagePlus (if you have United miles or Chase points)
  • Avianca LifeMiles
  • Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
  • (And potentially others)

You might find that Aeroplan charges 70,000 points, LifeMiles charges 69,000 points, and United charges 80,000 points for the identical flight. By checking multiple partners, you can identify the cheapest option and transfer your points to that specific program to make the booking, saving potentially tens of thousands of points!

Let’s take a look at the different Turkish Airlines Business Class Pricing with different star alliance partners.

Here you can see that there are four different pricing and loyalty program options to book the exact same flight. Depending on the points you have—and any active transfer bonuses—you can compare and choose the best value.

Beyond price, don’t forget to consider factors like cancellation fees, quality of customer support, and how easy it is to get help when needed. These are often overlooked but can make a big difference in your experience.

Always confirm availability before transferring your credit card points. Most point transfers are irreversible, and you don’t want to be stuck with airline miles that are less valuable than transferable points—and that come with expiration dates.

Conclusion: The Cornerstone of Award Travel

As you can see, airline alliances aren’t just corporate partnerships; they are fundamental tools for anyone serious about maximizing their points and miles. They dramatically expand your options, allowing you to fly on airlines you might not have direct access to via point transfers and letting you shop around for the best points price for your desired flights.

While it might seem a bit complex initially, grasping the basics of the three major alliances (Star Alliance, Oneworld, SkyTeam) and understanding the concept of booking partner awards is arguably the single most important piece of knowledge for unlocking truly amazing value in award travel. It’s the difference between being limited to a few airlines and having the whole world open up to you on points.

To help you navigate this complex web of partnerships, I’ve put together a free Airline Alliance and Transfer Partner Cheatsheet. It clearly lists the key members of Star Alliance, Oneworld, and SkyTeam, and details which points currencies in the US and Canada transfer to which airlines. You can download your copy here: Get the Free Cheatsheet

Using resources like this cheatsheet and taking the time to explore the partners of your favorite frequent flyer programs (especially those linked to your credit card points) is key. Start practicing searching for partner award availability, and you’ll soon see how mastering this concept is the cornerstone of traveling further, more comfortably, and more affordably using your hard-earned points and miles.