The other week, I redeemed a last-minute award from São Paulo to Dubai, and it took a while to decide which alliance (Oneworld or Star) to use, and then from which program.
There appears to be an issue with Ethiopian Airlines award availability that airlines in the Americas cannot see or have been blocked from accessing, as United, Air Canada, and Avianca were unable to find any.
I am vested in five Star Alliance program and usually check them all if I redeem to see what makes most sense when everything is factored in.
- United Airlines
- Air Canada
- Avianca
- Aegean
- Singapore Airlines
Note that I pulled up the United, Avianca, Aegean, and Air Canada example screenshots today, as I didn’t save screenshots at the time, when I was researching options and issuing the ticket.
United Airlines
There were no options on United Airlines for the dates in mid-April I was looking at.
It seems that they can currently only pull up the Turkish Airlines inventory for flights between these city pairs (São Paulo – Dubai). Nothing was available on Ethiopian.
Air Canada
Air Canada always has plenty of options due to the number of partners it has, and flexible pricing on its own and Emirates awards.
They were offering some flights on Emirates and Air Canada, but at a very high price.
They were also not available to pull up the Ethiopian availability.
Avianca
This airline’s LifeMiles USED to be great, and buying their miles was worthwhile. Unfortunately, that is rarely the case anymore.
They also cannot pull up Ethiopian award availability, but do have access to Turkish Airlines inventory.
Aegean
I was surprised that Aegean was able to find Ethiopian availability, but there was no business class available for the date I needed (business class is cheaper than economy using LifeMiles).
Also, the charges are very reasonable.
Singapore Airlines
I have had issues getting anything worthwhile ticketed using Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles, as the booking interface is awful and the surcharges are usually high.
Luckily, Brazil doesn’t allow fuel or carrier surcharges, so the fees here are reasonable. I decided to pay more in KrisFlyer miles than in Aegean, as these would expire over the next 6 to 10 months (I had already paid to extend them once).
Conclusion
I find it quite interesting that none of the Star Alliance programs in the Americas (I don’t use Copa’s) have access to Ethiopian award inventory, but Star Alliance airlines elsewhere do, based on my sample of five.
There are some instances where these Aegean miles can make a lot of sense, and their program is not inflated with transferrable currency from various credit cards.
