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Frequent Flyer Programs and Redeeming Miles: Overview

Your initial choice of frequent flyer program is likely that of your home region’s major airline. While this makes sense for most casual travellers, it’s worthwhile to become acquainted with these programs in general. Pay particular attention to alliances and partner airlines. There are just three major alliances: Oneworld, Star Alliance, SkyTeam. Redeeming through the right frequent flyer program, you might fly your favored airline for a fraction of the original price. This is possible because of airline agreements within alliances, codeshare agreements, partner agreements, and so on. We will explore opportunities in arbitraging them, and the huge role of credit cards and points in redeeming free flights and getting other benefits.

⇩  Click for airline alliance map with fleet sizes of local airlines
Airline Alliances and Fleet Sizes
SCZMGE, Major airline alliances with current fleet size World map, CC BY-SA 4.0

Getting started with frequent flyer programs

Airlines are in a position to help make your travel more comfortable (having first made it uncomfortable!). They’ll do it either for cash, or for you joining their frequent flyer program with a long list of advertised benefits! Which benefits and perks are actually the most valuable, and which are distractions?

Airlines like to promote their programs, naturally. First time joiners receive offers such as a number of bonus miles upon registration and again after your first flight, but if status requires a hundred flights and those miles are impossible to redeem, you’re scarcely better off by joining. And you may be worse off economically compared to flying on an LCC instead. Miles earned from flying could’ve been credited to a more useful program. (For the same cash fare, you might be able to credit full miles and 100% tier points towards status in one program, and 0% in another.)

Here at Miledom we don’t focus much on airline status, except when it can be acquired for free or really cheap, through status matches or otherwise high-value strategies, such as ‘mileage runs.’ Instead, we’ll focus on programs that offer attractive miles earning and spending opportunities for free flights. By the way, feel free to join all of them – just avoid having to chase status, and choose carefully where to credit miles.

Thus, the most important features of frequent flyer programs are:

Consider how you’ll spend miles, then seek ways to earn them

First, a little primer on spending miles: Different programs have different sweet spots. Here is one of Star Alliance’s Turkish Airlines’ Miles&Smiles program, for flying on its same-alliance partner United Airlines: Between Hawaii and anywhere in the US costs just 7500 miles one-way, or 15,000 miles return in economy. For business class, the price is 12,500 miles one-way. If you were booking these 6-11 hour flights through United’s own program, you might redeem 25,000 miles for one-way in economy. If those Hawaii-US flights are something you’d love to redeem the most, you’ll probably want to participate in a credit card rewards program that has Turkish Airlines as a partner.

Transferrable rewards points are valued for their flexibility. They are usually transferred at a 1:1 ratio, with some, especially Amex, featuring frequent transfer bonuses (commonly 20-30%). Amex’s Membership Rewards points can be transferred to 18 airline programs and 3 hotel programs. Transferrable points includes American Express Membership Rewards (MR), Capital One Miles, Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR), and Citi ThankYou Points (TYP).

Smaller programs, such as HSBC Rewards, have less transfer partners, but may offer other valuable benefits including insurances, mortgages, expat services, etc. (For instance, the free-if-qualified HSBC Premier card still offers unlimited Boingo Wi-Fi hotspot, which disappeared some time ago as a benefit of the Amex Platinum.)

Airline status and status matching

As we mentioned, status chasing is rarely worthwhile, at least if you fund your own flying and don’t fly weekly. For Delta Skymiles in 2024, the requirements for Gold status are 50,000 qualifying miles or 60 segments, and $8,000 spend. For Diamond status, required are 125,000 miles or 140 segments, and $20,000 spend.

Airline status comes with a host of benefits which are similar among the alliances. Airlines have their own status terminology and benefits, and they map to the alliance’s narrower nomenclature. United has four status levels, but inside its alliance (Star Alliance), they’re all contained within Silver or Gold. Benefits include lounge access, extra luggage, upgrades and priority lanes, when flying on an alliance member or partner. These are attractive benefits and can even save tons of money, time, and frustration. If only a way existed to get status easily…

We like to status match or seek a status challenge to obtain status. The major US programs frequently offer status challenges, where some amount of flying will be required to obtain or keep status. There are often more streamlined opportunities internationally. For instance, Singapore Airlines’ Krisflyer program offers an instant status match to Silver status and then an upgrade to Gold status for qualified status holders of Shangri-La Circle Jade and Diamond members, as well as Marriott Bonvoy Platinum and higher status holders. This can be a most useful status to anyone flying on Star Alliance airlines (such as United or Air Canada) regularly. Sometimes immediate status matches can be had, but such opportunities are rare.

As we mentioned, the natural affinity between flying and hotels leads to lots of opportunities. Hotel status tends to be much easier to obtain, and shortcuts exist to obtain hotel status first, including Marriott Bonvoy Platinum, through applying for the Amex Brilliant card. Such cards’ other perks and huge signup bonuses can make it worthwhile regardless, and hotel status could then be matched to airline status (and other hotels!) when there are ongoing promotions. Some have been able to status match from one program to another, and yet onwards for years…

Airline status isn’t obtained as easily through credit cards. Immediate high-tier airline status is granted by the US Black Amex (Delta Platinum), whereas the UK Black Amex grants equivalent status with Virgin Atlantic as well as Emirates. Meanwhile, HSBC Australia has recently launched its Star Alliance Gold Mastercard.

Comparing award redemption pricing

Most redemptions in an airline’s program happen with the same airline, or at least inside its alliance. However, some of the best redemptions can be had with partners that are not even in the same alliance. Tracking partner airlines and respective award charts requires some effort, and booking methods may involve phoning in. It provides some of the best value though, especially when redeeming for expensive, monopolized routes.

Let’s consider one such route. The only operator of flights to the island of Koh Samui, Thailand, is the owner of the local airport: Bangkok Airways. They serve more than twenty daily domestic flights to Koh Samui airport, and apart from rare promo fares of $200 for 5am departures, return flights go for around 300. For their Singapore to Koh Samui flights, prices can reach $400 one-way.

With these kinds of cash fares for a 45 minute flight, we might want to book these flights to Koh Samui by points, if we had enough airline miles or those valuable transferrable points currencies. We could study the partners of Bangkok Airways and their award charts to find out that redemption options (on top of mild taxes under $50) for Singapore to Koh Samui one-way include:

Similar pricing applies to the route from Bangkok to Koh Samui, but taxes there are just $7. Double the points and taxes for return flight pricing.

Obtaining a valuation for points and miles

Ideally, you could transfer those points to Qatar during a transfer bonus promotion (say, 30%). You might end up transferring 4616 points from Amex for 6000 of Qatar’s. Deducting taxes and fees, for the Singapore route, we can get value as high as 5 cents per point for Qatar or transferrable points, or as high as 6.5 cents per point for transferrable points, such as Amex MR points, during a 30% promotion.

This valuation is objective when comparing to the cash price. Meanwhile, it’s totally subjective as to whether you would ever pay that cash price, or choose to redeem those miles. Koh Samui presents a nice example, as you can’t land there on any other airline – your other options involve spending all day just on getting there, transferring around from the mainland’s airports, piers, and finally ferries.

Likewise, you might not ever be willing to pay $20,000 for a first class flight that can be redeemed for 80,000 points. That makes for a valuation of 25 cents per point. But if you were willing to pay $800, you obtain a valuation of 1 cent per point. That same flight in economy might go for $500, or 25,000 points, yielding 2 cents per point. Which would you choose? The value we could assign to each option depends on our preferences and desires.

And finally, redeeming with miles can add value in unexpected ways. Premium cabin redemptions come with increased baggage allowance, sometimes reaching hundreds of pounds. Award flights may have more flexible change or cancellation terms than economy or ‘business light’ fares that even legacy airlines are becoming fond of. United Airlines MileagePlus, for instance, offers totally free award cancellation at any time. American AAdvantage allows free 5-day award hold. Others allow generous routings, free stopovers for as long as you wish, or free segments.