Star Alliance is planning to launch a credit card this year that will allow its members to redeem miles across all airlines, according to a report. The article states that you will be able to redeem points via the frequent flyer programs of any of the Star Alliance airlines, so it sounds like you will be able to transfer to all member airlines to take advantage of any Star Alliance award chart sweet.
It seems very surprising that Star Alliance would be able to get 26 airline programs to all use the same currency. I am surprised that United would be cool with a competing US credit card that sheds too much light on the advantages of all of the other Star Alliance airline award charts. Maybe they see the ability to get more market share from other countries if Star Alliance launched similar cards in other markets?
I am surprised that this hasn't happened before. It makes sense to me that Star Alliance sees the money that gets thrown around from banks to airline programs and that they would think, "How can we get a piece of that sweet pie?" It makes sense to me that they would be able to collect money from the bank and pay member airlines whatever the negotiated rates are for award tickets, pocketing some of the massive profits that airlines normally make. This makes sense to me. I thought it would be resistance from individual airlines who already rely on massive financing in the form of selling miles.
There are no further details regarding issuer, benefits, or earning structure. We have to keep an eye on this to see what happens.
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