In the past six years, I’ve flown dozens of flights on United and its partners. I haven’t earned a single United MileagePlus mile from any of these flights. Yet, every time I fly United, I get a free checked bag, lounge access, priority boarding, priority check-in and more.
How could that possibly be the case? I’m strategic about where I credit my United and Star Alliance flights. As you’ll learn below, it’s not always best to credit flights to the mileage program of the airline you’re flying.
In this post, I’ll show you how to determine where it’s best to credit the miles you earn from your flights, and how doing so can help you score more miles or elite perks.
Playing the Points and Miles Field
Many travelers may not realize it’s possible to credit the miles earned from a flight to a mileage program other than for the airline you’re flying.
However, many airlines partner with other airlines, either as part of an alliance or a non-alliance partnership. As part of these partnerships, you can choose to earn miles on one of potentially dozens of airline mileage programs. Playing the points and miles field can be key to getting the most from your flights.
The Three Airline Alliances
Before you can start leveraging airline partners, it’s important to learn about airline alliances. The three major airline alliances and their U.S. partners are:
Star Alliance: United Airlines and 25 partners
SkyTeam: Delta Air Lines and 18 partners
Oneworld: American Airlines and 12 partners—plus Alaska Airlines effective March 31, 2021
The agreements between each airline may vary. But generally, you can expect to earn miles through any alliance member’s mileage program when flying on an alliance member flight. And then you can redeem those miles on any member (as long as there’s award availability).
However, alliance partnerships offer a much deeper bond than just mileage earning and redeeming. If you earn elite status on one alliance airline, you can enjoy perks like lounge access, checked bag benefits, priority boarding and more each time you fly on another alliance partner.
Non-Alliance Airline Partnerships
The other U.S.-based airlines aren’t members of the three major airline alliances. However, some have partnerships with other airlines. For example, JetBlue and American Airlines have a codeshare agreement. This agreement allows members to earn points/miles and elite status as if they were flying on their favorite airline when flying on these routes.
Even before it joins Oneworld, Alaska’s Mileage Plan program has 17 airline partners for earning and redeeming miles. These non-alliance partners help make the Mileage Plan program so valuable. After all, some domestic Alaska first class award flights can cost more than 50,000 Alaska miles. Or, you can use the same 50,000 miles for a one-way business class award flight to Asia on Cathay Pacific.
Setting a Goal for Your Earnings
Before you start considering where to credit flights, it’s important to consider your goals. Think about what’s going to be the most valuable for you to get out of crediting your flights.
Decide Between Earning Elite Status or Earning Miles
The first decision to make is whether you want to focus on earning the most award miles or earning elite status.
Personally, I’m a budget traveler at heart. I’m happy to fly across the world in economy if the price is right. Economy flights don’t come with perks. Yet, thanks to elite status, I’ve enjoyed many tasty meals, pre-flight drinks, showers and even massages before taking a long-haul economy flight.
My focus is generally on earning elite status when figuring out where to credit my flights. However, if you’re booking business- and first-class flights when you travel, you’ll get many of these elite perks as part of your ticket. In this case, earning elite status offers little additional value.
Also, you may not fly enough miles to earn elite status on any airline even if you focused on earning elite status. In either case, it’s better to focus on what mileage program offers you the most (and most-valuable) miles.
Consider Which Miles You Should Earn
When deciding where to credit miles, it’s important to figure out what type of airline miles will be most valuable for you.
For example, American Airlines AAdvantage miles aren’t easy to accumulate. That’s because AAdvantage isn’t a transfer partner of any major bank program. So, if you’re trying to build up your balance to take advantage of an AAdvantage sweet spot, you may want to credit your flights to AAdvantage instead of a higher-earning option.
Or you may want to focus on earning miles in a niche program like Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles. Miles & Smiles offers one of the best sweet spots around right now: flights to Hawaii for 7,500 miles in economy or 12,500 miles in business class. If Aloha is in your future, you may prioritize earning Miles & Smiles rather than United miles when considering where to credit Star Alliance flights.
