Free Flying in First Class !?
In the last few years the big airlines have come together in alliances, to cut costs and increase efficiency. There are only a few well-known airlines left which are not in an alliance. So I never understood the fusion of Air France and KLM, despite both being members of Skyteam. Emirates from Dubai (UAE) is not in any alliance, and is growing amazingly fast under its own steam. The hub Dubai will take a lot of business from the established European airlines and airports. But also Asian airlines such as Qantas and Singapore Airlines will notice it.
As a customer of airlines one should also be in their Air Miles program. Sooner or later they mean free flights. If you also use the credit card which belongs to the program, then miles do not expire. Even better, every purchase brings additional miles. Miles can be used to pay for flights, or get a free upgrade into First Class. Many different combinations are possible.
I use the following groups (apart from Skyteam) and Emirates, whereby Oneworld has the largest route coverage of all of them.
www.milesandmore.de (Led by Lufthansa/Singapore Airlines)
www.oneworld.com (Led by American Airlines/British Airways)
www.skyteam.com (Led by Air France/KLM)
www.skywards.com (independent, no group - Emirates)
It doesn't matter with which airline you collect miles, as long as the airline is a member of a group and you are also a member of the other air miles programs.
An example: I collect American Airlines miles with my Japan Airlines flights, because Japan Airlines is a member of Oneworld. I even book the Japan Airlines flights with American Airlines, though I will never fly with American Airlines ;-) The same holds vice versa, but is not needed in my case;-)
Citibank has just sent me my new Oneworld credit card, and then later deactivated it, reactivated, reactivated... According to Citibank the card was active and inactive. Which then !? In the end I had to let the Citibank call-centre activate it by hand. LOL !
