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When an airline joins an alliance, its Frequent Flyer Program usually becomes more attractive, but it can even be an interesting option for travellers who don’t necessarily fly with that airline, but with its partners.

From this perspective, we examine each program closely. On June 30, it was finally time for Oman Air to join the oneworld alliance. Its Sinbad program was previously only of limited relevance to non-Oman Air customers, as until recently it only had Etihad as a full partner and Qatar Airways – which also sponsored its entry into oneworld – but only for the route between Doha and Muscat. Only recently, Air France and KLM also joined the program.

Thus, there were high hopes that the new oneworld members would give the program a new dimension. This may indeed be the case. The problem, however, is that Oman Air, to this day – more than two weeks after their alliance membership – has not announced anything about the partners on its website.

Hard to understand why an airline spends so much energy over years to join the alliance and then, in the end, shows so little interest in it.

How successful the SAS Millionaire campaign was can be gauged by the various imitators.
After the somewhat unsuccessful version by Etihad (see below), Turkish Airlines now tried it with their Miles&Smiles – and made everything even worse.

On June 27, they promised anyone who flies with Turkish Airlines from Istanbul to all six continents by October 27, 1 million miles. No registration was required for that.

But the turnaround came just 11 days later when Turkish Airlines announced that the promotion was now closed. Only members who had already completed a flight or purchased a ticket before July 08 were still allowed.

Due to the size of the airline (and the fact that no sign-up was required), there should still be a large number of customers participating in the promotion. However, whether one can truly rely on Turkish Airlines’ word and should plan an extra flight to Australia and South America is another question.

This turnaround and the doubling of award prices at the beginning of 2024, however, shows one thing: Turkish Airlines remains one of the best airlines in the world, but it’s best to steer clear of its Frequent Flyer Program…

Jetblue is turning 25 years old and has set up a creative promotion for this occasion.

If you fly to 25 different Jetblue destinations between June 25 and December 31 (except for flights at the Blue Basic fare), you will receive 350,000 bonus points in its TrueBlue program as well as Mosaic 1 elite status for 25 (!) years. This is the first elite tier in the program with comparably relevant benefits.

The idea is certainly nice from a marketing perspective. But whether one should bet on being able to fully take advantage of this benefit for 25 years and thus celebrate Jetblue’s 50^th anniversary is a different question… The 350,000 points – which you already get with 20 destinations – are probably the sure value in this offer.

It is always nice to see someone recognize their mistakes.

So it happened with Etihad, who quickly saw that their promotion of giving the first Etihad Guest member to fly to all 15 new Etihad destinations 5 million miles was a real flop.
And so the offer has now been improved – but unfortunately it has only been made worse.

You now also receive a bonus if you fly to just 5 or 10 destinations, which is of course more realistic. But – you have to be among the first 100 participants to then enter a draw for 25,000 or 100,000 miles.

The effort is still too high to justify even a single extra flight. Even if you rate the winning odds positively at 10/100, you have no insight into whether you are among the first 100 participants. And taking the risk to incur extra expenses for the chance to possibly win a few miles is simply not worth it. A round trip from Abu Dhabi to London in Business Class currently costs at least 140,000 miles and more than 800 EUR in taxes/surcharges.

Flying Blue is celebrating its 20^th birthday this year. This is relatively young, but it can be explained by the fact that Flying Blue emerged from the merger of the previously independent programs of Air France (Fréquence Plus) and KLM (Flying Dutchman).

This year, you can expect some interesting promotions from the program, such as the current one with Hertz: For reservations made until July 19, you will receive a generous 20 miles per EUR spent. Rentals under this offer must be made by October 30.

As is well known, Miles & More switched to a dynamic pricing for award flights with Lufthansa, Swiss, and Austrian Airlines two weeks ago.

So, a good opportunity to see how this plays out in practice, as we, like many, of course, feared a massive price increase, especially in Business Class.

But even two weeks after the switch, the system barely works. Most flights have no availability, and when they do, all flights on a route have the same price – which doesn’t really correspond to dynamic pricing.

The few visible price examples, however, do not show a massive devaluation, quite the opposite. However, the surcharges have been further increased, so now, for example, even in Economy Class, you pay an extra 440 EUR for a roundtrip with Austrian from Vienna to Bangkok.
However, the system is so full of errors that you can currently find real bargains. A roundtrip from Frankfurt to Vienna in September for 870 miles in Economy Class? Planning a flight from Frankfurt to London for tomorrow? If you fly in Business Class, the flight will cost you only 6,984 miles, but 19,512 miles in Economy Class.

Have fun hunting for bargains! The only thing that can be said for sure is that this won’t last forever.

For years, Korean Air has been working on acquiring Asiana Airlines. One of the last elements to be resolved was the integration of the frequent flyer programs Skypass and Asiana Club.

For admittedly not entirely comprehensible reasons, Korean Air offered to convert Asiana miles at a ratio of only 0.7 Korean miles per Asiana mile.

This was promptly rejected by South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission. While Korean Air can improve the offer, this means at best that the full integration of the two companies will be delayed until October 2026 – several years behind the originally planned schedule. Since such a merger certainly doesn’t bode well for frequent flyers, members of both programs still have some time to redeem outstanding miles and make the most of it!

On August 21, United will make two changes to its MileagePlus program that don’t affect everyone – but will sting those they do affect.

On one hand, stopovers will no longer be possible on award flights, meaning the ability to combine two or more destinations on a single trip. On the other hand, elite customers booking a full fare in Economy Class will no longer receive immediate confirmation for upgrades, but only after the usual procedure before departure – with the corresponding uncertainty about which cabin they will ultimately be allowed to travel in.

From November 24, the program will also no longer publish any award tables for upgrades. It is enough to look at what happened to the prices for award flights after no more award charts were published to gauge what this will likely mean…

Etihad is currently introducing the Airbus 321XLR, which enables it to open new secondary routes such as to Krabi, Phnom Penh or Tunis. Together with the “normal” route openings like Prague, Atlanta or Taipei, this brings the total to 15 new destinations in 2025.

To celebrate this, it is now challenging its Etihad Guest members: The first member to fly to or from all these 15 destinations will receive 5 million miles.

The question that arises is how far one is willing to go (morally) for it: Among the new destinations is also Sochi in Russia. With every passenger flying to or from Russia, the state directly earns money.

Do 5 million miles justify supporting the Russian war machine and the killing in Ukraine? A question that everyone has to answer for him/herself.

For reservations still made by June 17 and rentals of at least two days until September 30, Sixt has a potentially interesting promotion in collaboration with Accor’s ALL program.

For expenses (rental costs and kilometres) of 50, 100, or 150 EUR respectively, you receive 400, 700 or 1,100 ALL points respectively. Considering that 2,000 ALL points have a reward value of 40 EUR when redeemed at Accor hotels, one can achieve savings of up to 16%.

Of course, this promotion becomes less interesting if you spend significantly more than 150 EUR, as the points credit remains at 1,100 points.