Travel&Vacation

The big U.S. airlines are fond of touting their widespread alliances with other airlines around the world, often claiming that interchanges among alliance members are seamless. Actually, they’re not always so. Although interchanges among alliance members do, in fact, generally go more smoothly than those among more independent airlines, you occasionally hit some rough spots. Here are a few cases.

Frequent flyer credit

By far the most frequent complaint about alliances I hear from readers is about frequent flyer credit. When they fly a U.S. airline’s alliance partner on one of the cheapest economy tickets, they don’t get full mileage credit in the U.S. line’s program. Travelers who fly mainly on U.S. airlines are accustomed to receiving full mileage credit no matter what sort of ticket they buy, but on partner lines they may wind up with reduced credit or no credit at all.

This happens more frequently than you might think. Take Star Alliance, for example. It’s the largest worldwide alliance, and it includes two U.S. airlines—United and US Airways—as partners. If you try to earn United miles on partner-line flights, but buy one of the cheapest economy tickets, United gives you:

• No credit at all on Air New Zealand, Austrian, Singapore, and TAP.
• 25 percent of actual miles on SAS.
• 25 to 50 percent of actual miles on LOT.
• 50 percent of the actual miles on Air Canada domestic flights, South African, and Thai.
• 50 to 70 percent of the actual miles on ANA and Asiana.

You find similar limits for cheap-ticket flights on the other two big alliances, SkyTeam and oneworld. These limits shouldn’t come as a complete surprise: They’re posted on the U.S.-based airlines’ websites. But if you don’t read the fine print, you can get caught.

Airport connections

At their major hub airports, airline alliances try, where they can, to arrange adjacent gates for member lines. They’ve done that at some, but at others it’s still a work in progress. When you connect from one alliance partner to another, you may face a long walk (or shuttle trip) from arrival to departure gate. In some cases, you may have to transfer from one terminal to another. And in the worst case, you have to leave the secure area in your arrival terminal, schlep to a different departure terminal, and fight the security line a second time for your connecting flight. As with frequent flyer details, you can usually find airport terminal diagrams online, including information about changing terminals, but you might have to dig a bit. Start with “airport information” on the U.S. alliance member’s site.

Premium seats

When you reach an elevated elite frequent flyer status with an airline, one of the perks is confirmed advance assignment to a coveted exit-row or bulkhead seat in economy class—the few economy seats that actually have adequate legroom. Even though alliances generally promise reciprocity in frequent flyer status benefits, that promise doesn’t always apply to premium-economy seating. On Star Alliance, it specifically does not: Lufthansa, for example, offers that benefit to its own elite frequent flyers but not to elites on partner lines. As far as I can tell, this information is not posted on any line’s website—you find out about it the hard way.

Airport lounge clubs

Most alliances promote reciprocal admission to members of a partner line’s airport lounge club (Admirals Club, Red Carpet Club, and such). So far, I haven’t heard of any cases where that system doesn’t work, but you may encounter a few. As with frequent flyer credit, you can check specifics on the U.S. airlines’ websites.

If it’s important, check. If you’re concerned with frequent flyer credit, airport connections, or other reciprocal alliance benefits, check the details. In most cases, the information is readily available online. If it isn’t, call one of the airlines involved. And if you can’t get what you want, look for an alternate itinerary.