If you’ve ever been frustrated trying to figure out the best ways to search for awards on Oneworld airlines, keep reading for some guidance and tips. We’ll address approaches to make searching easier and find good uses for your points and miles.

Oneworld Alliance Overview

The Oneworld Alliance, along with SkyTeam and Star Alliance, make up the world’s three major airline alliances. Travelers have much to gain from understanding how these alliances function since they provide a global network of flights, allow passengers to earn and redeem miles across member airlines and provide elite benefits across the network.

My last trip was February 2020. My wife and I returned home from an awesome week-long stay at Scrub Island Resort in the British Virgin Islands not knowing that it would be our last trip for a long time. We had tons of trips all over the world planned for 2020 that we would slowly begin cancelling one-by-one: 3 weeks in South Africa, a trip to Chile and Argentina, a few trips to Europe, and tons of domestic trips as well.

Like many of you, we’ve been pretty cooped up for the last year or so.

Hey MileValue Family,

Many of you take the time to read each and every article we publish. For that, we are truly grateful. Some have even taken advantage of our free credit card consultations. But today I wanted to take the time to highlight one of our lesser known services, our award booking service.

One of the biggest challenges in points and miles is putting your miles to good use.

Air Canada’s loyalty program, Aeroplan, has been involved in so much drama in the last few years, any telenovela would be jealous of the twists and the turns.

For about 25 years, Aimia Inc. operated Aeroplan independently of Air Canada. The Montreal-based carrier planned to launch a new program but eventually bought Aeroplan back from Aimia for 450 million Canadian dollars in 2018. Now that Aeroplan has returned to Air Canada, the program underwent many changes, and we have the final result.

The program has migrated to a new system, but luckily everyone’s miles are intact.

The world is in a time-out

The travel world has certainly been turned upside down due to COVID-19. Every country around the globe has been changing travel restrictions on pretty much a weekly basis. Airlines are adjusting their routes and aircraft even more frequently.

At the moment, some airlines including Air Baltic, Ryanair, Avianca, and EasyJet have 100% of their fleet grounded. Air France and KLM have over 90% of their fleet grounded, with hopes to be 30% airborne in July. Singapore Airlines has been flying just 9 aircraft.

Flying Blue, the award program of Air France and KLM, often flies under the radar. Even with dynamic award pricing, there are plenty of reasons to check it out. Let’s move about the cabin and take a look. 

The Basics

Flying Blue is the name of the mileage program for Air France and KLM, part of the SkyTeam Alliance which includes 17 other airlines such as Delta Airlines and Alitalia. That means when flying on a revenue (e.g.

Updated March 30, 2020 to include data points on award refunds

Updated March 27, 2020 to include data points on United's refund practices.

There’s nothing normal about travel during the COVID-19 outbreak. As with any travel decision, always do what you feel most comfortable with. It is our personal opinion that there are many good reasons to take this time to plan ahead for future travels and more.

Let’s move about the cabin and discuss.

Eventually We’ll Be Cleared For Takeoff

There will come a time when the virus is over.

I received the following email from a reader.

Dawn writes:
I wanted to ask a question that I didn't see an answer for on your site or clearly on the interwebs.
I am hoping to do a trip this winter to India.

A few years ago, I created a manual for award booking. I thought the best way to organize it was to explain the key concepts of all awards in the beginning, and then explain each major program in detail afterwards. Here is the first section of the manual--nine key concepts of all award bookings. I've edited it slightly today to make sure it is up to date.

Are there any other key concepts you would add to a manual of award booking?
Key Concept 1
Each type of miles has its own rules.

Delta will no longer charge a $25 per passenger fee to book tickets by phone. That's excellent news since some Delta partners like Air Tahiti Nui can't be booked on delta.com.

In February 2015, American Airlines eliminated phone ticketing fees for awards flying airlines that can't be booked on aa.com.

United still has phone ticketing fees for awards--$25 per passenger.