With US Airlines leaving Star Alliance at the end of this month, there are a lot of questions about how awards will be handled with Star Alliance partners. In most cases, airlines sever ties with most of the alliance partners. However it looks like US Airways will be retaining partnerships with 12 Star Alliance carriers, per Australian Business Traveler: Aegean, Air China, Air New Zealand,, Avianca, Ethiopian Airlines, EVA, Shenzhen Airlines, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, TAM, TAP and Turkish Airlines.
Also, tickets booked with Dividend Miles on all other Star Alliance airline booked up to March 30 will remain valid for travel up to one year, but from March 31 you won’t be able to earn or redeem miles on those airlines.
The other big news is that after joining Oneworld on March 31, US Airways will continue to run Dividend Miles as an independent program from American Airlines’ AAdvantage, with its current award chart used to determine redemption rates instead of using the American Airlines’ chart. At some point, probably in 2015, the programs will merge, but until then we can continue leveraging US Airways’ award chart sweet spots, which I’ve highlighted numerous times before. Personally, I’ve booked 110,000-mile business class roundtrips to South Africa and 140,000-mile first class trips to Australia.
110,000 Dividend Miles for roundtrip to South Africa in business class – some carriers like Delta and United charge more than that for Europe business class!
Overall, this is great news in my opinion – the more redemption options the better and I’m glad they’re keeping the South African connection – I may need to do one more trip to South Africa, which is one of my favorite counties in the world!