Knowing the airline alliances and the benefits they provide opens up a world of opportunity to travel to many destinations where your primary local or domestic airline does not fly. These alliances provide value and benefits to you by using codeshare and a variety of perks, more luxurious fleet of aircrafts to destinations that allows you to still collect or redeem mileage points as a shared alliance to get you to where you want to go in style. These airline alliances are key to global travel and taking advantage of the many benefits afforded to you.
In like manner, you'll find in global travel, just like various other areas of our lives, that it's all about establishing relationships. This is the key to establishing an effective global footprint for the type of travel or living abroad experience you want to live.
The airlines figured out and established these alliances that strengthen each one of them in the alliance as they work TOGETHER as one united team for air travel.
I can tell you from my personal experiences where I have enjoyed the alliance and partnership to my advantage, simply because I typically do not care for US carriers for international flights and service. In my humble opinion, also supported by Skytrax who ranks the airlines, US carriers rank very low in the area of quality of service, quality cabins and overall international travel experience.
It is for this reason that I appreciate the alliances as I often book on my local carrier when in the states, but I look for flights operated by one of the international carriers that I prefer and book it on my local carrier with either mileage points or cash. It's a win-win situation for all involved; I'm a happy customer obtaining the experience I want and each of the airlines are getting their piece of the pie all due to the alliance. The key is accruing the points and the ability to use the points to travel on these carriers.
Unfortunately, I can also tell you of a very bad experience I encountered with the alliance partners and the impact it had on me. Although this experience occurred in 2006, the scar made me more aware and causes me to ask more questions and ensure that I'll receive the benefits that are due to me.
The incident occurred on my first trip to South Africa in 2006. I booked on Delta Airlines who was partnered with South African Airways at the time through Sky Team. During the time of my booking and flight, South African Airways dropped their alliance with SkyTeam, which including Delta Airlines.
The discontinuation of the partnership was not communicated to those who booked flights. By now, you may see where this is going. At the end of my flights to South Africa, Ghana back to South Africa and then the US, I noticed that I didn't receive my sky miles on Delta. I even gave it a few weeks to post to my account, but it never did. I called Delta to see what was going on with the miles that I should have accumulated from my long South Africa flights. I was depending on these miles as it was approximately 10k miles each way for the leg from Atlanta to Johannesburg and back. Back in 2006, you received the actual mileage flown regardless of the various class of ticket and cash spent. Unlike the many changes Delta made to make it more difficult to acquire miles as it is today which now encompasses the base fare class and money spent that will determine how many miles you will accrue. It's another way for them to provide less for the average traveler while capitalizing from and enticing travelers to spend more money for these little rewards and perks.
Nevertheless, Delta came back and informed me that South African Airways was no longer partners with them and that I should pursue getting miles directly with South African Airways. I immediately called South African Airways and they informed me that there was nothing they could do because I booked with Delta. I told both airlines that the two of them need to to resolve this matter as I should not be in the middle of a partner dissolution and dispute. I continued to address with the airlines and escalated, unfortunately it went nowhere, and I lost the battle and my miles after spending money where both airlines benefitted. Needless to say, I was beyond pissed. It was a scarring lesson learned and I do more due diligence regarding these partner alliances and each partner when booking on one airline and expecting the mileage from the operating partner. Since that time South African Airways has joined the Star Alliance.
Now, I've had several partnered flights booked on Delta (Sky Team) where I've had no SkyMiles accrual, SkyMiles redemption or benefits issues. I've often book on Delta and flew on KLM or Air France when going to Europe and likewise even when going to Ghana, West Africa through Europe. Likewise, I've flown on Korean Air from Southeast Asia through Delta and the SkyTeam Alliance with no issues.
So, although I had one horrific alliance situation that impacted me, I had several smooth interactions with no negative impact. Take it for what it's worth!
This is why it is good to learn and know your airline alliances and any news that may be occurring that may impact your booking regarding reward miles flown. I conveyed this information for knowledge and not to instill fear or cause you to be weary when booking these types of flights operated by another carrier. As mentioned, I still use alliance partnered airline bookings for my travel and haven't had any negative encounters like that since.
Know your Airline Alliances and let's TROT THIS GLOBE!!!
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