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Air Canada is in big trouble because of its Southern neighbour (or more precisely, because of its President).

All the more difficult to understand why Air Canada is announcing what is likely the biggest Aeroplan program devaluation in its history right now and implementing it on January 01, 2026.
The program will be switched to a revenue-based system, both for earning redeemable miles and for achieving status.

While the major US programs have established an accrual value of 5 miles per USD for base members, Air Canada will only offer 1 mile per CAD for base members on their flights (which corresponds approximately to 1.37 miles per USD).

Achieving the elite status will remain comparable to today, as long as it is achieved exclusively with Air Canada. Miles collected with Star Alliance partners (as well as, as a new feature, activities with non-air partners of the program) will only count for one-fifth. So if you still lack 5,000 status miles before the end of the year, it will no longer be sufficient to quickly fly with Lufthansa from Europe to Dubai at a mid-range economy class fare; instead, you will have to embark on a complete round-the-world tour.

Can you blame an Aeroplan member for looking for alternatives? Hardly.

Little is known about how the accident in June affected Air India, but apparently, at least short-term bookings have significantly declined.

This also explains the current, quite worthwhile promotion in their Maharaja Club: All reward bookings on Air India flights in August are discounted by 25% for trips completed by September 30.

At least if you are satisfied with Economy Class, you can make a real bargain, with a round trip from Europe to India starting at 45,000 miles. The same flight with Star Alliance partners would cost 120,000 miles in the program.

In Business Class, the price for a Europe flight with this promotion starts at 135,000 miles, which is somewhat less attractive considering that other programs offer a lower standard rate here.

Starting next month, LATAM Pass will introduce miles-based upgrades on an auction basis.

This can be interesting, as you can potentially get a bargain for few miles, especially on poorly booked flights. At the same time, however, LATAM has announced that such upgrades will take priority over complimentary upgrades offered free of charge to elite members – which, for many elite members, is clearly the most important benefit of participating in the program.

We will have to wait and see how this plays out in practice, but it is certainly to be feared that at LATAM, a passenger who uses a few miles (and thus reduces the company’s financial liabilities) will be considered more valuable than a loyal frequent flyer.

Oman Air had barely joined the oneworld alliance, and while details about the partnerships with the new partners are still not public in the Sindbad program even six weeks later, Oman Air surprised with a new (mutual) Frequent Flyer partnership: Star Alliance member Turkish Airlines.

This is all the more surprising, since Turkish Airlines is not only a competitor for Oman Air itself, but certainly also for other oneworld partners such as Qatar Airways or Royal Jordanian.

This partnership also represents a first for Turkish Airlines’ Miles&Smiles program, as it is the first partnership with an airline that belongs to another alliance – something that is generally not found within the Star Alliance.

The Discovery program of the Global Hotel Alliance makes perfect sense, especially because you can achieve top elite status by staying at just three different brands (out of nearly 50). In addition to other benefits, you also earn 7% of your spending as Discovery Dollars. Until the end of September, there is also a promotion for double points.

When redeeming, there is also full transparency, as one point/Discovery Dollar simply has a redemption value of 1 USD.

It is therefore all the more surprising that the program regularly offers discounts on the purchase of points – as is currently the case until September 01. So now you get points with a 15% discount, which is equivalent to a direct reduction on the costs of your hotel stay.

If you are certain that you can redeem these points within two years before they expire at any Global Hotel Alliance hotels, you should definitely take advantage of this. You can acquire up to 5,000 points under this promotion.

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.