This post may contains affiliate links The owner of this blog may be compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though the owner(s) of this blog may receive compensation for our posts or advertisements, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed through these channels are purely the bloggers’ own.
What is an Airline Alliance?
An Airline Alliance is a group of airlines who have an agreement to cooperate with one another. Often times this means offering flights to their customers from not only their own airline, but also those within their alliance.
Why should I care about Airline Alliances?
Airline alliances provide a great loophole for travel hackers. While many US based carriers use what is called dynamic pricing (prices – both cash and points – are flexible and change based on demand, length of flight, etc.). Oftentimes their international counterparts have set prices that are much less flexible. This can lead to incredible discounts for points and miles users.
Let’s say I wanted to fly United, but the United points prices were way too high. I could go look at the same flight on Turkish Airlines, Air Canada, and Avianca. Often these international carriers will have a cheaper points price for the same exact flight on the same exact carrier. This is why we love transferrable points cards like Chase, AMEX, Citi, and Capital One. We can transfer these to many of the airline/hotel transfer partners.
Can you show me an example?
My husband and I wanted to fly to New York on a direct flight. We found a direct flight on Delta. We then looked at Delta’s partners and found a cheaper flight on Virgin Atlantic. We transferred our Chase points to Virgin Atlantic and booked the Delta flight through Virgin Atlantic.
Airline Alliances
ONE WORLD ALLIANCE
Alaska Airlines
American Airlines
British Airways
Cathay Pacific
Finnair
Iberia
Malaysia Airlines
Qantas
Qatar Airways
STAR ALLIANCE
ANA
AirCanada
Air Portugal (TAP)
Avianca Lifemiles
EVA Air
Singapore Airlines
Swiss Air
Thai Airways
Turkish Airlines
United Airlines
SKYTEAM ALLIANCE
Sky Team
Aero Mexico
Air France/KLM
Delta Airlines
Virgin Atlantic
Kenya Airways
ITA
Credit Card Transfer Partners
Chase transfers to British Airways, Iberia, Air France/KLM, Air Canada, Singapore, United, Southwest, Virgin Atlantic, Jet Blue, Emirates, Aer Lingus
AMEX transfers to AeroMexico, Air France /KLM, Delta, ANA, Air Canada, Avianca, Singapore, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Iberia, Qantas, Jet Blue, Virgin Atlantic, Hawaiian, Ethihad, AerLingus, Emirates
Citi transfers to AeroMexico, Air France /KLM, Cathay Pacific, Malaysia, Qantas, Qatar, Avianca, EVA Air, Singapore, Thai, Turkish, Emirates, Jet Blue, Ethiad, Virgin Atlantic, InterMiles
Capital One transfers to Emirates, Ethiad, Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Qantas, AeroMexico, AirFrance /KLM, Air Canada, Avianca, EVA Air, Singapore, TAP, Turkish
