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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%.

Pan Am is not only preparing to resume regular flights, but has also announced that it will revive the legendary WorldPass Frequent Flyer Program and has already selected a software provider for it. Details about the program itself are not yet known, but given Pan Am’s planned modest size, the program name is likely to be the most interesting element.

If you have WorldPass miles outstanding from the early 1990s, don’t get your hopes up about being able to reactivate them, as legally they are two different companies.

Sadly, the original Pan Am joins the long list of airlines – Ansett, TWA or Spanair, to name just a few – where frequent flyers have irrevocably lost their outstanding miles when the airline ceased operations.

Due to the associated risk, customer loyalty programs worldwide – not just in the travel sector – operate on the principle that you first collect points and then redeem them. Exceptions are rare, such as Miles & More, which grants its Senator status members a mileage overdraft of up to 50,000 miles.

The relatively young HeyMax program in the Far East is now turning this principle on its head. HeyMax is a coalition program in the retail market, operating in places such as Singapore, Hong Kong or Japan, with the only reward option being the exchange of points for the currency of one of its numerous partner programs of airlines and hotels.

Under the slogan “Fly Now. Earn Later,” you can now indeed use rewards on a large scale and collect the points later. Given the constant devaluation of the programs, the argument is certainly compelling that you don’t know how much the points you collect today will be worth in two or three years.

Let’s hope that HeyMax’s courage will be rewarded and that they won’t be exploited by fraudsters!

Accor’s ALL program has always been distinguished by a clear reward value. For 1,000 points, you get a reduction of 20 EUR in Accor hotels.

Alternatively, Accor maintains many partnerships with Frequent Flyer programs, where traditionally 4,000 points could be exchanged for 2,000 miles. Since it is hardly possible to achieve a value of 80 EUR with 2,000 miles, this was never really interesting.

However, there are three parallel developments at ALL that make one reassess the matter. First of all, there is a lot of dynamism in the partner network. Departures (like the Iberia Club) are countered by new arrivals, such as Asante Rewards from Kenya Airways or BluChip from Indigo. Secondly, some exchange rates have improved to a 1-to-1 basis, for example, with Flying Blue from Air France KLM or with SUMA from Air Europa. And thirdly, Accor has started regularly running promotions with partners to temporarily improve the exchange rate.

And of course, Accor also offers the possibility to double dip with 4 different partners – Flying Blue, Privilege Club (Qatar Airways), Frequent Flyer (Qantas), and TudoAzul (Azul) – with varying conditions between the partners.

You can think what you want about the Etihad program Etihad Guest, but above all, the network of airline partners is quite interesting.

However, it has now shrunk by Air Serbia, which has launched its own program called Elevate. The revenue-based program has no partners, and points expire after one year, making it useless for many. Air Serbia has not published any concrete information on how to use the collected points, which does not make it easier either to identify with the program. However, you can have a valid Etihad status matched and even claim miles according to your Etihad Guest balance.

Based on the right strategic decision that with its own program it can control its destiny better than by using a partner program, Air Serbia has unfortunately not managed to offer its customers a better value compared to the Etihad solution with this first step.

And as soon as Hawaiian Mokulele Airlines hears about the program, Air Serbia might have to change the name of the program, as Elevate is already the name of Mokulele’s program… A simple look at our website would have been enough to understand this and prevent future problems.

Especially in hotel programs, you will find more and more experience rewards. They present an interesting alternative on paper, but often have a less appealing value per point.

Therefore, the approach of Langham Hotels with their new experience rewards across five categories is quite interesting: Prices for reward nights in the Brilliant by Langham program are dynamically set and usually cost at least 100,000 points, often even significantly more.

The first published experience rewards, however, only cost 1,000 or 3,000 points and are thus significantly more quickly attainable. To collect 1,000 points, you need to spend 35 USD at Langham Hotels in the program. Even though it is often difficult to assign a monetary value to these rewards, this can indeed be a worthwhile alternative to using points.

The Langham Experience awards are always changing offers, each available only at specific times in specific hotels.