Archive for August, 2026

While the merger between Korean Air and Asiana has now cleared all regulatory hurdles and will be completed on December 17, there is still uncertainty regarding the Frequent Flyer programs. South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has still not approved the merger of the two programs Skypass and Asiana Club, as Korean Air still does not want to take over all Asiana miles at a 1-to-1 ratio.

Now, Korean Air has “threatened” that both programs will continue to operate in parallel beyond December 17 if no approval is given by then.

In parallel, Asiana will leave the Star Alliance on December 16, but the Frequent Flyer partnerships will likely end 2 months earlier. TAP Air Portugal was first to have already made such an announcement on their part.

It is hard to imagine what this would mean for the Asiana Club – without today’s Star Alliance partners and without Asiana Airlines as an independent airline… So, if you still want to redeem your Asiana miles on the Star Alliance network, you should definitely do so in the next two months.

As is well known, we do not view the developments at Etihad Guest in recent years with unreserved approval, as the program has lost much of its attractiveness due to devaluations, despite efforts on other levels.

But the activities in their partner network are definitely free from any criticism. In addition to the existing attractive airline network, two more additions have now been announced for the near future: Fastjet (Zimbabwe) and Africa World Airlines (Ghana). Both airlines currently do not have their own frequent flyer program and are not partners with other programs.

It remains to be seen how much Etihad has learned from past mistakes, after airlines like Air Serbia or Air Seychelles, which previously left Etihad Guest as their loyalty solution, but then went their own ways.

Historically, free upgrades for status customers have been one of the main advantages of North American programs. At times, it went so far that it was almost an exception if an airline could actually sell a First Class ticket on a domestic flight.

But of course, these upgrades were always capacity controlled, so you had no real entitlement to them.

Reports are now increasing that US airlines prefer to sell remaining First Class seats to any customers at check-in for a few extra dollars rather than giving them away for free to their best customers a few minutes later.

And American Airlines will now introduce the next restriction on August 25: On transcontinental flights and flights to Hawaii, where American Airlines uses aircraft with an Economy Class, a Premium Economy and a Business Class cabin, AAdvantage status customers can only upgrade by one class. So if you want to gamble on a Business Class seat, you have to buy a much more expensive Premium Economy ticket.

Without being sure that someone at American won’t have the idea to sell a potentially free seat in Business Class at the last minute.

One of the main problems with Miles & More is the status program. Even though the offered benefits are rather good compared to the industry, the qualification rules are clearly too strict. As a rule of thumb, in other Star programs, you already receive Gold status, while with Miles & More, you only get Frequent Traveller (Star Alliance Silver) status.

This overestimation is also reflected in the program’s offers to buy the status.

Thus, holders of a co-branded credit card in Europe can still purchase the Frequent Traveller status, valid throughl February 2027, until September 30. Cost: 650 EUR. If, by definition, you don’t fly enough to achieve this status through flights, it is therefore hardly possible to recoup such an amount with the lounge access and extra baggage as the main advantages of this status over  such a short time window.

As a general rule, as is often the case, the advice here is: turn on your brain and set aside your status obsession.

Even though hotel programs vehemently try to resist: They make little sense for someone who hasn’t reached a (higher) elite status in the program. Even the supposed member rates can often be found similarly on booking platforms.

Many hotel programs do offer the possibility to collect frequent flyer miles, but this is often in the range of 2 miles per USD. If you set a mile value of 1 US cent per mile, this corresponds to a savings of 2%.

So if booking platforms offer corresponding promotions for collecting miles, one should take advantage of them and plan their trips in advance: Currently, you can earn 7 miles per USD in Copa’s ConnectMiles program (bookings until August 25) and 5 miles per USD in the Qatar Airways Privilege Club (August 31 for stays until October 31) for bookings through Booking.com, which is more like a savings of 5-7%.