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Étant donné le propriétaire commun IAG, il n’est guère surprenant qu’Iberia imite British Airways et renomme son programme en Club Iberia Plus à partir du 1^er avril, tout en basant également la qualification de statut sur le chiffre d’affaires.

La surprise est cependant qu’Iberia rend beaucoup plus facile d’atteindre le statut – même pour les passagers de British Airways. Non seulement les valeurs de chiffre d’affaires nécessaires sont inférieures à celles du British Airways Club, mais on peut également accumuler jusqu’à 30% des points de statut avec des partenaires non-aériens. Et les vols avec les partenaires oneworld sont également beaucoup plus valorisés.

Ainsi, on peut obtenir le statut Gold avec seulement deux aller-retours avec Qatar Airways en classe affaires de l’Europe Occidentale vers l’Extrême-Orient.

Cependant, la comparaison pour les vols avec British Airways est encore plus drastique: Si l’on prend un vol aller-retour en classe économique flexible pour 400 EUR (avant taxes et frais) à l’intérieur de l’Europe, on aura besoin de 23 vols aller-retour par an dans le programme de British Airways à partir du 1^er avril pour atteindre le niveau Argent. Pour obtenir le niveau Gold équivalent dans le programme révisé d’Iberia, il ne faudra que 14 vols.

Combien de temps cela peut-il bien durer?

After a long back and forth, Lufthansa and the Italian government have agreed on an acquisition of ITA. And under Lufthansa’s leadership, things are now accelerating rapidly.

As such, ITA already left SkyTeam two weeks later, with the separation taking place gradually until April 30. However, joining the Star Alliance will be delayed until early 2026.

A frequent flyer partnership for Volare and Miles & More members with the other partner is also already in effect. At the moment, miles can already be collected and redeemed; initial elite benefits (such as lounge access) are expected to be added by the end of March.

According to Lufthansa’s strategy of taking full control over its partners, it seems unlikely that Volare will have a future as an independent program in the medium term, but will probably be integrated into Miles & More. In fact, Volare has already communicated that the continuation of the program is secured until December 31, 2025, but remains silent about the plans thereafter. The real value of an airline like ITA lies, in fact, in its customer base, which can only be accessed through full program integration.

And Lufthansa knows this all too well and has even managed the masterstroke of maintaining this access through the Miles & More program to the customers of companies like LOT or Luxair, which have meanwhile developed into clear competitors of Lufthansa…

Last month, there were initially rumors that United was interested in acquiring the somewhat troubled JetBlue, then Lufthansa. Between 2007 and 2015, Lufthansa already held a stake of up to 18% in the company.

If ever something concrete develops in this direction, JetBlue is likely to become a candidate for the Star Alliance.

While these are currently just rumors, there are also facts: JetBlue has launched a reciprocal Frequent Flyer partnership with another Star partner, TAP Air Portugal. TrueBlue members can thus already earn points on three Star partners, in addition to TAP with Singapore Airlines and South African. Other relevant airline partners in the program include notably Qatar Airways, Etihad, Icelandair and Hawaiian Airlines.

Unlike with Star and oneworld, SkyTeam elite customers have not had access to lounges on domestic flights so far when flying with partner airlines.

This will largely change on April 01, as the main lounges will then also open to partner members.

Two important exceptions remain, however.

The first concerns airport lounges that are not operated by the airlines themselves. Here, it will more or less remain a matter of luck whether one will be let in or not – which will mainly depend on the knowledge of the people at the reception.

Not surprisingly, the second exception, the Delta Lounges, also remains. Here, you will still only be admitted if you have an international connecting flight with a SkyTeam airline, before or after the relevant domestic flight.

Qantas will increase the award levels in its Frequent Flyer program by around 10-20%, both on its own flights and with all partners. This marks the first increase in rewards since 2019, but it still hurts when it happens all at once.

The changes will only come into effect on August 05, giving you time to use rewards at the old prices. And it might even make sense to convert points from Accor’s ALL program to reach your desired award, as the exchange rate between the programs has improved from 2,000 ALL points to 2,000 Qantas points to 2,000-to-2,500. This thus represents the best exchange rate with all of Accor’s partners.

Even in its name, British Airways has always had a doubt about who their program is aimed at: “Executive Club.”

In April, we will get used to the new name “The British Airways Club” – but at least as far as the elite qualification is concerned, the program will likely cater more to executives: Qualification will be based on revenue and in order to achieve Silver status – which notably grants access to oneworld lounges – you need to spend 7,000 GBP (before taxes and fees) each year with British Airways, American Airlines or Iberia, which likely translates to a customer price of around 8,000 GBP.

Of course, that’s no longer within everyone’s reach. Other partner flights still count towards status qualification, but with them alone, one is unlikely to achieve the status.

The alternative: more traditional programs within the oneworld alliance, with which one can achieve status with significantly lower expenses.

For Avianca’s lifemiles members, 2025 starts off well as the program has introduced unilateral improvements.
Members now receive significantly more (revenue-based) miles on all fares on Avianca flights, including for the first time miles at the cheapest Basic/Light fares. On the other end of the scale, the credits in Business Class have been increased from 7 miles to 10 miles per USD.

If this motivates you to engage more with the Star Alliance program in 2025, the promotion for purchasing miles running until January 31 might be of interest, where the program is traditionally always aggressive: For each purchase, you receive a bonus of at least 110%, which increases to 160% starting from the purchase of 36,000 miles. Such a bonus can make purchasing miles definitely worthwhile.

If you are planning flights with Emirates or FlyDubai until March 23, you should book them by January 24 to secure a good start to the New Year as a Skywards member.

For all these flights, you earn double miles.

After the recent changes, the Skywards program has become more interesting for reward flights in Economy Class, but significantly less so for reward flights in Business or First Class. Double miles on one or two flights will at least partially compensate for this, but certainly not entirely.

So far, six airlines use the shared Avios currency for their frequent flyer programs. In addition to the founders British Airways and Iberia, these now include the programs of Qatar Airways, Finnair, Aer Lingus, and Vueling.

The advantage of this common currency is notably that it can be transferred between the various Avios programs for free, allowing one to benefit from the best reward opportunities in the programs, as there are still differences on the reward side.

To these companies, an unexpected one will be added in the coming months: the relatively small regional Scottish airline Loganair, which will hence be basing its Clan Loganair on Avios, too.

The small program is unlikely to enter into direct partnerships with the other companies, but the currency will – at least for occasional Loganair customers – certainly become more useful like that.

If you, as a SkyMiles member, are using the partnership with Lyft, you are probably doing so more out of habit than conviction: Since the start of this partnership in 2017, the SkyMiles program has devalued to such an extent that as a Lyft customer, you simply have other, more rewarding accrual options.

But by April 07 at the latest, you will be forced to change these habits, as Delta will then be exchanging its riding partner to team up with Uber. The same considerations apply here, and as with Uber’s other Frequent Flyer partnerships, collecting points will likely only be possible locally, i.e. in the USA, and possibly not even for external visitors who do not use the US version of the Uber app.