To further demystify the frequent flier programme, Cat.a.lyst spoke with Mark Davies, Director, Marketing and Loyalty, Star Alliance, the 27 global airline club. Edited excerpts from an interview:

What does Star Alliance offer flyers in terms of FFPs?

We are not promising you everything that you are used to on your frequent flyer programme when you fly on the alliance. But we are promising a certain set of things such as ‘earn and burn’ when you fly on any member airline in obviously the right class. You can then earn miles on any member carrier flying across the world. You can then redeem these miles on any member airline in the Alliance.

You can redeem miles to purchase a seat or upgrade across every single member airline. This is available to everybody; as long as you join a programme you can ‘earn or burn’. If you do it on one programme then all the miles that you earn get accumulated on one programme, this is more popularly known as a one-card concept.

Why blackout dates?

These are based on capacity. You have a possibility to go on every single flight but if the flight is full, say, I have been trying to buy a ticket between Frankfurt and London on December 24 then there is no way I will get it even though I am willing to pay money for it, because it is full.

Is there any standard for how many miles you travel to get one FFP mile?

No, it is based on your FFP.

So, how do you integrate 27 airlines?

The key point is that there is no Star Alliance Frequent Flyer Programme. There are 19 FFPs. Some of them have five or six carriers in one programme like Miles and More in which there are six carriers, not just Lufthansa, but also Brussels, LOT, Austrian, Swiss Adria.

A flyer can join one or as many FFPs as he or she wants of the 19 programmes. The programme has a relationship with the customer. If you are in the Miles and More programme you collect miles on that programme and not on Star Alliance. Because of the different markets that airlines operate in different conditions offer different options. But you cannot share or shift miles between programmes.

How come you can buy but not burn?

The commercial decision to invent a programme is a decision of the carrier. The airlines account for the liabilities of the programme in their profit and loss. The commercial relationships which they enter are always bilateral relationships no matter if it is another Star Alliance member or a baggage manufacturer. What they do is put a value to each of the flights that you are doing on another airline but they manage that value within their profit and loss. We have no influence on that.

The writer was in Frankfurt at the invitation of Star Alliance

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