How I Use Airline Alliances and Partners to Earn and Redeem for Free Flights

Airline alliances are the key to unlocking the most valuable miles and points travel rewards. The catch is they come with a maddening cluster of everchanging loyalty program rules and sweet spots that are hard for anyone but the most diehard award travel nerds (guilty) to keep track of.

So, in this guide I’m sharing how I earn and redeem my miles and points with the help of airline alliances and partners so that you can get a better sense of the process to help you leverage your own travel rewards.

Let’s Start with a Few Miles & Points Basics.

It’s natural to wonder how to earn enough miles and points for that dream trip or business class flight when you’re just getting started. You need miles and points to book that free flight or hotel night after all!

Miles and points information online and in groups focuses on travel rewards credit cards and their sign-up bonuses.

And it’s true.

Credit cards, as well as shopping portals, everyday spending, and dining programs all can earn you a good amount of miles and points quickly.

Can you just earn miles from actually traveling?

Seemingly simple, but earning airline miles from traveling has become harder to do.

In fact, it’s by far the least lucrative way to earn airline miles. 

Airlines have changed their earning structures to favor higher-priced tickets and big spenders.

That means a cheap economy flight purchased on a third-party travel website will earn fewer miles than a full-price economy ticket bought directly from the airline. Premium seats will earn more than those in economy class.

So whenever I pay for a flight with money and not miles, I do my best to earn every last mile possible for the best return on the money I spent.

This is where understanding airline alliances (read this first if you’re just starting out) and how to use them to your advantage becomes your ticket to success.

How to Earn Airline Miles with Alliances & Partners

You probably already know to put your frequent flyer number on your itinerary when you fly on a particular airline.

But, what happens when flying on another airline?

The answer is: one of their airline partners that makes the most sense for your miles and points strategy and travel plans.

For example, if you fly on Aeromexico but you’re a Delta SkyMiles member, you can put your Delta frequent flyer number on your itinerary.

Delta and Aeromexico are both in the SkyTeam Alliance. These alliance partnerships have reciprocal benefits that let you fly on one airline alliance member but credit those miles earned to another airline alliance member.

Why is this important?

First, you’ll lose value on your paid ticket by earning nothing in return.

Second, it does no good to earn miles with each individual airline. These miles can’t be merged, combined, or transferred with other accounts.

The smarter plan is to funnel all the airline miles you earn into specific airline loyalty accounts in each of the 3 major airline alliances instead of spreading your miles across many airline accounts.

What I Do to Earn the Most Miles with the Help of Airline Alliances

No matter which airline I’m flying, I check to see which alliance they’re in (if any) and whether or not they have any non-alliance partnerships with other airlines.

All of the airlines’ partners are potential accounts to credit earned miles from a paid cash ticket.

Once I know this, I decide which airline loyalty program to credit earned miles.

To figure this out, I first think about the flexible points programs I earn with, like Chase Ultimate Rewards or American Express Membership Rewards.

I think specifically about who their transfer partners are, especially the ones I use the most.

For example, I often transfer points to Flying Blue, the loyalty program for Air France and KLM.

Earning miles to this account makes sense because I can use them together with any points I transfer from a bank program like Chase or American Express.

Second, I take a quick look at Where to Credit, a website that lets me see what I’d earn for my cash airline ticket across all possible airline loyalty programs that partner with the airline I am flying.

Ideally, I try to credit miles earned for flying with airlines that have a high earn rate and are also a transfer partner for a flexible points currency I earn, use, or will use for a trip I want to plan.

How to Redeem Airline Miles with Alliances & Partners

Once you’ve earned enough miles for an award flight, the thrill comes when you actually book that award ticket!

This is also when you can get an even better value for your miles and points…if you understand the power of airline alliances.

Here’s the good news.

The airline miles you’ve accrued can be used for flights on that airline, but also with many, if not all, of their alliance and partner airlines.

For example, United has 26 Star Alliance partners, plus 15 more partnerships with airlines outside of the Star Alliance.

Awesome, right!? 🙂

But here’s the headspinning part to all of this.

Even accounting for limitations or restrictions with a few of them, that’s a dizzying number of flight options to think about, let alone research.

How I Redeemed Airline Miles with Alliances & Partners (as a beginner)

I quickly learned a couple of miles and points ESSENTIALS.

• Airline miles cannot be transferred, converted to, or merged with other airline miles.

• You follow the award chart, pricing, and rules of the airline miles you’re redeeming, not the airline you’re flying.

For example, United miles are always United miles. They can only be used to book flights on the United website.

But, I can use the United miles I’m earning to book an award flight on an alliance partner right on United’s website.

If I use United miles to pay for a flight on Air Canada (a Star Alliance partner), I pay United’s price and follow United’s award booking rules…even if Air Canada’s award price is cheaper on its own website.

This was the point many years ago when I realized…

• There is a real learning curve to booking flights and maximizing airline alliances and partners.

How I Redeem Airline Miles with Alliances & Partners Now

Now when I search for award seats, I know:

• Award pricing is not the same across airlines, alliances, and partners.

Each airline sets its own prices.

And I must pay the price set by the airline whose miles I’m using to pay, not the price being charged by the airline actually flying the flight.

So, I want access to the airline with the best price to get the most from my miles.

This is when I understood that transferable points and crediting miles earned from cash flights to the “right” airline was the key to maximizing my award flight redemptions.

Let’s use an example from my Patagonia trip many years ago when I put together my first real ambitious miles and points booking.

If I hypothetically had miles for both airlines, I could’ve compared pricing on each airline’s website (for the exact same flight) and booked with the one that was offering the best award price for the flight I needed. 

Instead, I had only Delta miles so I paid Delta prices no matter what Aerolineas Argentinas was charging.

So now, not only do I compare prices across airline partners, but I also earn airline miles and transferable points that let me take advantage of the best price.

Learning + Reverse Engineering Your Travel Goals = Win

You’re probably wondering: with so many airlines and each one charging its own award price, where do you search for award flights and how do you know which has the best award price?

This comes when you learn airline sweet spots and the best ways to use specific types of miles and points. As a starting point, a few award flight basics can help you understand which airlines fly to your destination.

You can also use tools like Seats.aero and Point.me to run award searches for you.

Once you know which airlines fly to your destination, you can hone in on specific airlines to search and compare prices.

For example, let’s say United Airlines (Star Alliance) and American Airlines (Oneworld Alliance) fly to my destination. And let’s also imagine I have a stash of miles for both United and American Airlines, as well as a pool of Chase Ultimate Rewards Points.

In this case, I’d search on United and American’s websites to see their flights and the miles needed to book one.

Then, I’d ask myself: who are their alliance partners that I have access to with my current portfolio of points?

Some of Chase’s transfer partners include Air Canada Aeroplan (Star Alliance), Singapore Airlines (Star Alliance), and British Airways (Oneworld Alliance).

If I didn’t know, I could check which transfer partners were in the same alliances as United and American.

Then, I would search for the same flight to my destination on each of these airline’s websites.

This would show me exactly which airline had the best price for the flight I need.

A couple of tips to keep in mind as you learn…

1. Not all airline websites are created equal.

Some do a better job than others of showing as much partner award space as possible, while others only show certain partners, or do an altogether lousy job of returning useful results.

If you search for a flight you saw on United’s website on a partner airline’s website and the flight isn’t showing, it could be for a few reasons like that particular partner airline has a terrible website or because the airline flying the route hasn’t released the space to be seen on all partner websites yet.

The point is, it can be frustrating, especially at the beginning. Don’t lose hope and continue to practice and familiarize yourself with different airline websites.

2. In many cases, partner award flights can be booked on the website of the airline whose miles you’re using to pay.

For example, if you search on United’s website for a flight to Germany and the results show a flight operated by Lufthansa, you’ll book the award flight with your United miles on the United website just the same as if you were booking a United-operated flight.

But, sometimes it’s not possible to book the partner award flight online.

In this case, write down all the flight details and call the airline whose miles you’re using to pay for the award flight to book it.

Have as much information as possible for the agent. Not all airline phone agents understand loyalty program booking rules so it’s best to make it as easy as you can. If the agent is having a hard time, call back to get another agent.

Remind the agent the award was not bookable online to hopefully get any phone booking fee waived.

3. Watch out for airlines charging high taxes and fees. 

If the award ticket you’re looking at has hundreds (or thousands!) of dollars in fees, it’s likely not worth paying the miles and the fees.

As you learn more, you’ll have a better understanding of which airlines do this and which ones are much more reasonable.

But until then, it’s enough to know that just like the number of miles needed for an award flight is different from airline to airline, so are the award booking taxes and fees.

Bottom Line

There’s a steep learning curve to redeeming your miles and points for the best value.

But airline alliances and flexible points like American Express Membership Rewards points or Chase Ultimate Rewards points are your keys to success.

The more you learn about airline alliances and partner redemptions…the more you’ll get from your points miles!

What are your questions about how airline alliances can help you get the most from your miles and points?

Like this post? Please share it on social media using the share buttons below.