Delta Air Lines has a fair amount of flights coming into Canada. Of course I would like to see more, to help with the competition. Today’s post is a rundown on how Canadians can utilize Delta’s rewards program called SkyMiles.
Note that Delta Air Lines is a member of SkyTeam. Personally, I rarely fly with SkyTeam, but if I do, I bank my miles to Delta because of its expiry policy.
As a Canadian, it is well known that Aeroplan is the default go-to program. The main reason is because it is the more widely accessible and easier program for a Canadian to rack up their miles in a hurry. They have partnerships with three banks (American Express, CIBC and TD), who all offer co-branded credit cards. There are ten personal credit cards offered to Canadians, not including business Aeroplan cards.
There always seems to be a few changes to airline alliances ever so often, so I thought I’d update the list from 4 months ago.
In case people are wondering why I put this together. As you know, one of the main reasons this blog was created was to help me document my personal research. I find having all the members of airline alliances listed on one page very handy.
It has been a while since I last provided Saturday updates, so I thought I’d do one today. Today’s theme will focus on two Star Alliance members, Air Canada and United Airlines.
I actually forgot to include a new airline alliance from last time, so I thought I’d provide another update to this list.
No updates to my personal portfolio, though I will include some new information. Below are the following airlines that I focus most energy with:
Delta Air Lines has a rewards program called SkyMiles. The program is known to have dismal reward redemptions because it requires a lot of miles for a reward flight. Note that Delta Air Lines is a member of SkyTeam, which means that…
American Airlines has a loyalty program called AAdvantage. It has been widely documented already that AAdvantage took a devaluation hit this past year in reward redemption. That being said, I still believe that there is still a lot of value to be had, especially for short-haul redemptions.
Though United Airlines may not be best known for its elite program, they do hold a lot of value in terms of rewards redemptions. Unfortunately for Canadians, there is no co-branded credit card that allows us to earn United Airline’s MileagePlus miles. There is no Canadians transferable points program either.
The list of airline alliances needs an update from last time. Most of the changes came with the main airline affiliates (which I identified below in bullet format).
When we’re out collecting those Aeroplan miles, it sounds great when we redeemed enough for a free flight across the world. However, this isn’t always the case. A free ticket definitely sounds like a great rewards, but not if those taxes and surcharges end up costing you half a ticket if you were to purchase it.