Best ways to redeem Amex points on Star Alliance airlines

February 22, 2020

Editors note: This post has been updated with current examples. It was originally published on Nov. 12, 2018.

American Express Membership Rewards points regularly appear as one of the most valuable currencies in TPGs monthly valuation thanks in large part to the incredible flexibility of these points. Not only can you transfer points to airlines in all three of the major alliances (Oneworld, SkyTeam, and Star Alliance), but you have multiple transfer options to choose from within each alliance. However, determining which transfer partner to use within a single alliance can be a bit tricky.

Weve already explored this topic for Oneworld and SkyTeam carriers, and today well wrap up this series by taking a look at how to get the most bang for your buck when redeeming Amex points for travel on Star Alliance airlines.

If youre looking for tips to redeem your Amex points with other alliances, check out the following articles:

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In This Post

Earning Amex Membership Rewards points

The best way to quickly rack up a large number of Membership Rewards points is through welcome bonuses on the issuers top credit cards. Some of the best current offers include (terms apply):

The Platinum Card from American Express: Earn 60,000 Membership Rewards points after you use your new card to make $5,000 in purchases in your first three months of account opening, though note that some readers have been targeted for a 100,000-point bonus by using the CardMatch tool (offer subject to change at any time).
The Business Platinum Card from American Express: Earn up to 75,000 bonus points: 50,000 bonus points after you spend $10,000 and an extra 25,000 bonus points after you spend an additional $10,000 all on qualifying purchases within your first three months of Card Membership.
American Express Gold Card: Earn 35,000 Membership Rewards points after you spend $4,000 on eligible purchases with your new card within the first three months of account opening.

These cards also offer lucrative bonuses on different categories of purchases, allowing you to boost your balances even further with your everyday spending. Or you could consider a card like The Blue Business Plus Credit Card from American Express, which earns 2x points per dollar on the first $50,000 in purchases each year (then 1x).

Redeeming Amex Membership Rewards points

Although Amex gives you the option to redeem your points directly through the Amex Travel portal, you will almost always get more value by transferring them to a partner airline, especially for awards in premium classes. Youll also want to keep in mind that not all Membership Rewards transfers are immediate, so make sure you leave yourself enough time to book.

Lets dive into some of the best ways to book Star Alliance airlines using your Amex points.

Aeroplan

Air Canadas spun-off loyalty program (Aeroplan) has some of the most reasonable prices for booking Star Alliance awards. However, there are a few things youll want to keep in mind to maximize your redemptions. The first is that Aeroplan passes on fuel surcharges for several of its partner airlines. Some partners like EVA dont include fuel surcharges meaning youll only owe the standard $5.60 for this EVA Air business class flight from Los Angeles (LAX) to Taipei (TPE):

However, they can also be exorbitant, like the nearly$800 youd have to pay on this one-way Lufthansa first-class award ticket from New York-JFK to Munich (MUC):

A little bit of research could end up saving you a lot of money. Generally speaking, for the many airlines where Aeroplan does not pass on fuel surcharges, they also offer cheaper mileage rates than their well-known Star Alliance sibling United (which notably isnot an Amex transfer partner).

Another quirk of Aeroplan is that its search engine will often show mixed cabin awards, and even if your long-haul flight is in economy, itll price at the business- or first-class redemption rate. Aeroplan doesnt highlight this on the main results page, but if you click Details to expand the flight information, youll see a bright yellow box alerting you that one leg of your trip is in a lower cabin.

So with all this in mind, what are the best Aeroplan redemptions to pursue? Domestic awards within the U.S. will cost 12,500 miles in economy and 25,000 in business plus $5.60 in taxes. This can be a great value if the cash price of the flight youre considering is high, especially for last-minute awards.

Aeroplans real edge, however, comes with cheap international premium-cabin awards. If youre able to find an elusive United saver-level business award, especially on a plane equipped with the new Polaris seats, Aeroplan will only charge you 55,000 miles one-way to Western and Central Europe (Eastern Europe is just 2,500 miles more each way):

If you book a Star Alliance partner on which Aeroplan doesnt impose fuel surcharges (like Swiss), youll wind up saving 12,500 to 15,000 miles each way compared to booking through United.

The deals somehow get better the further you travel, with a one-way award in EVAs phenomenal 777 business class only costing 77,500 miles for a flight all the way to South Asia:

For additional details on some potential awards, check out this guide on how to maximize Aeroplan miles.

Avianca LifeMiles

Over the last few years, Avianca has risen from relative obscurity to quickly become one of the most popular Star Alliance loyalty programs out there. While Aviancas customer service leaves a lot to be desired, its award chart has some hidden gems, including some great Star Alliance options. The program also doesnt pass on fuel surcharges on award tickets (unlike several other members of this list).

Lets dive right in with one of the most appealing redemptions: Lufthansa first class from the U.S. to Europe for 87,000 miles and only $5.60 in taxes!

Of course, these awards are typically only available to partner programs (like LifeMiles) within a couple weeks of departure, but its a cost-efficient way to cross the Atlantic in style.

You can also mix and match cash and miles at some very attractive rates through Aviancas program. If you want to spend the fewest possible miles on this same award ticket, you could spend 35,000 miles and $837. Remember, Aeroplan would charge you that much money and twice as many miles for a Lufthansa first class award.

LifeMiles can also be a great way to book domestic United awards. While Aviancas award pricing no longer matches its published award chart for flights within the U.S., you can find a number of attractively priced flights, including this flight from Chicago (ORD) to Miami (MIA) for a reasonable 10,000 miles:

There are also some sweet spots for slightly less common routings as well. One that Im very excited about (as an expat based in Asia) is the ability to fly from Hawaii to North Asia in first class for only 66,000 miles. This is one of the best ways to fly ANAs beautiful Flying Honu A380s, which exclusively operate between Honolulu (HNL) and Tokyo-Narita (NRT).

Fly first class on ANAs A380 between Hawaii and Tokyo for only 66,000 LifeMiles. (Photo courtesy of ANA.)

Keep in mind too that if youre short on the Amex points you need to transfer to LifeMiles, you could always boost your account through the Club LifeMiles program or utilize one of the programs regular bonuses on purchased miles. You can also transfer Capital One miles, Citi ThankYou Rewards points and Marriott Bonvoy points to Avianca.

Singapore KrisFlyer

The Singapore KrisFlyer program has undergone a number of changes in the last few years. While these were mostly devaluations, the program did add a few minor improvements (like the ability to book some partner awards online). You should definitely take some time to understand the KrisFlyer program; in addition to Amex Membership Rewards, its a direct transfer partner of the other major transferable points currencies as well (Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou Rewards, Capital One and Marriott Bonvoy), and as youre about to see, the program has access to awards that other Star Alliance programs typically do not.

Singapore uses a separate award chart for flights on its own metal and for flights on Star Alliance partners. If youre looking to travel in Singapores exceptional new suites class, the only way to do so is to book directly through KrisFlyer, as the program dont release premium cabin award space to partners with the rare exception of Alaska Airlines. This is one of the most difficult and coveted first-class awards, and unfortunately you cant find it flying to the U.S. yet. Of the routes that currently feature the new suites, the short five-hour hop from Singapore (SIN) to Shanghai (PVG) seems to have the most frequent award availability at 53,000 miles each way.

Singapore is perhaps best known for operating the worlds longest flight, a daily nonstop between Singapore and Newark (EWR). This route is operated by a specially configured A350-900ULR with only premium economy and business-class cabins. If youre wondering what it feels like to spend a full 18 hours in the air, you can check out these reviews:

Award space in premium economy seems to be readily available at 73,000 miles each way, but finding business-class awards is much harder to do, even with 67 seats in the cabin. If you find saver-level award space, a business-class ticket will cost 99,000 miles each way. Paying a ~35% mileage premium to sit in business class doesnt sound all that bad, especially since business-class fares can easily be more than double the cost of premium economy.

Redeeming 99,000 miles for a $4,862 ticket would give you a value of 4.91 cents per point, well above TPGs valuation of KrisFlyer miles at 1.3 cents each.

Even if you cant find an elusive saver-level business award, you still have two options to consider. You could pay 140,000 miles for a standard level award, which is available on most days (and would still net you 3.47 cents per point). Alternatively, you could try to waitlist for the lower-priced award and hope that a saver-level seat opens up before departure.

You can check out our guide on how to waitlist a Singapore award, but one important thing to note is thatyou must have all the miles in your account to proceed. This means that if you transfer points to KrisFlyer and your waitlist request doesnt clear, the miles will be stuck there for a future redemption.

ANA Mileage Club

The ANA Mileage Club program uses a zone-based award chart and offers a few sweet-spot redemptions worth evaluating. However, there are a couple of important limitations to keep in mind: Only round-trip awards are permitted, and ANA does impose fuel surcharges on many award tickets. That said, there are still some great values to be had. Lets start with a simple one: round-trip flights between the U.S. and Japan on ANA metal. Prices vary by season, as shown below:

Economy	Business	First
Low season	40,000 miles	75,000 miles	150,000 miles
Regular season	50,000 miles	85,000 miles	150,000 miles
High season	55,000 miles	90,000 miles	165,000 miles

These are steals pretty much across the board, especially round-trip first class for as little as 150,000 miles (though its possibly to do even better on these flights, as well see a little bit later).

The prices only go up marginally if youre flying between the U.S. and Southeast Asia, with economy flights ranging from 55,000 to 70,000 miles, business class ranging from 100,000 to 115,000 miles, and first class ranging from 195,000 to 210,000 miles (all for round-trip pricing). In each case, these numbers arent that much more than what United would charge you for a one-way award ticket on the same flight.

ANAs partner award chart uses the same zone classifications at different price levels, and depending on the routing, you may be able to get some terrific value. For example, round-trip awards from the U.S. to Europe clock in at just 55,000 miles in economy or 88,000 miles in business. Unfortunately, the round-trip restriction and hefty surcharges on many partners may make this tough to swing, but if you can make it work, its a terrific redemption.

For the ultimate adventurers among us, ANA is one of the few airlines to still offer a round the world redemption option, and even better, it uses a lucrative distance-based award chart. The rules are relatively simple:

Travel must continue in an east or west direction.
A maximum of eight stopovers is permitted (maximum three in Europe and four in Japan).
Travel must touch all three ANA mileage zones.
Travel must originate and end in the same zone.

The mileage zones for the purpose of this redemption are as follows: 1) North America, Central America, South America and Hawaii; 2) Europe, Middle East and Africa; and 3) Japan, South Korea, China, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Southwest Pacific. Round the world awards cost the following amounts:

You can get pretty creative with this, building an all-business-class journey from Los Angeles to Tokyo-Narita, on to Singapore, Addis Ababa (ADD), Frankfurt (FRA) and then ending in New York-JFK for only 125,000 miles plus taxes and fees.

Thats a lot of time in business class for a comparably small number of miles!

Etihad Guest

The hidden value of the Etihad Guest loyalty program is very similar to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan: Since neither airline is a member of a major alliance, theyve instead struck up partnerships with individual airlines that range from not worth mentioning to very lucrative. In the case of Etihad, there are two specific partners worth highlighting: ANA and Asiana. Etihad uses a distance-based award chart for both of these airlines, and stopovers are permitted.

If you were to take the shortest route from the U.S. to Japan and fly San Francisco (SFO) to Tokyo on ANA, a one-way ticket would cost 37,000 miles in economy or 63,000 in business class. If you built in a stopover in Tokyo before continuing on to somewhere like Shanghai, youd only pay 43,000 miles in economy or 78,000 miles in business class.

With Asiana, only round-trip awards are permitted. Any round-trip from Seoul (ICN) to the U.S. would fall into the highest pricing bracket of 10,000 or more flight miles, and would price as follows:

Economy: 83,000 miles round-trip
Business: 138,000 miles round-trip
First: 276,000 miles round-trip (yikes!)

Etihad also offers very competitively priced short-haul awards for both ANA and Asiana, similar to British Airways distance based award chart. The real sweet spot is for flights that are under 1,000 miles in distance, as theyll cost less than 10,000 miles for an economy redemption.

Virgin Atlantic

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles are some of the most underrated out there, but they can be a great value for Star Alliance partner redemptions. Virgin Atlantic has redemption agreements with several Star Alliance airlines, including Singapore, Air New Zealand, South African Airways, ANA and Air China (its agreement with SAS only allows you to earn miles, not redeem them).

The specific redemption prices and eligible routes vary by partner. Lets start with Air China, the simplest of them all. You can only redeem for flights between Beijing (PEK) and London-Heathrow (LHR). The table below shows the cost of a round-trip award, with one-way awards available for half the price.

The only other partner with reasonable pricing is ANA, and it might be one of the greatest deals a points and miles traveler can possibly score. While one-way redemptions arent allowed, the chart below shows the cost for round-tripawards on ANA:

Thats right; a round-trip ANA first-class award from the U.S. to Japan will only cost 110,000 to 120,000 miles, depending on your departure city. And ANA business-class awards will be either 90,000 or 95,000 miles round-trip. This is an easy way to score cheap flights on five-star airline that puts a laughably high sticker price on its premium cabins, and when you factor in frequent Amex transfer bonuses, the deal just gets better.

Bottom line

When we talk about the flexibility that makes transferable points so valuable, its more than just the ability to pick an alternate routing if you cant find award space on your desired itinerary. This also extends to programs you can use to book an award on the exact same flight(s). By being strategic, you can realize some significant savings in terms of money (taxes and fees), miles or both.

The American Express Membership Rewards program offers several solid ways to book just about any Star Alliance award you can find, and taking the time to pick your transfer partner carefully can result in a much less costly trip.

Featured photo courtesy of Star Alliance.

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