Guide to Oneworld, SkyTeam & Star Alliance Status Benefits

When you earn elite status with an airline that’s part of a global alliance, such as Qantas, you get to enjoy the benefits when flying with all other airlines in the alliance. That’s one of the reasons that international travellers generally regard Qantas status as more valuable than Virgin Australia Velocity status.

When you reach Qantas Gold status, for example, you automatically get Oneworld Sapphire status which gives you a guaranteed set of benefits, including airport lounge access across the whole Oneworld alliance.

With Velocity Gold status, on the other hand, you only get an inconsistent assortment of benefits on some of Virgin Australia’s partner airlines.

In this article, we look at the alliance-wide status benefits offered by Oneworld, SkyTeam and Star Alliance airlines…

Oneworld status benefits

Oneworld offers three alliance-wide status tiers. It’s the only alliance with a third tier, which makes the top Oneworld Emerald level particularly valuable for frequent flyers.

The following airlines make up the Oneworld alliance:

Here are the three tiers, how they correspond to different status levels with major Oneworld airline programs and the alliance-wide benefits offered with each tier:

Oneworld Ruby

Oneworld Ruby (the red tier) is equivalent to Qantas Silver, Cathay Pacific Silver, British Airways Bronze, American Airlines Gold or Alaska Airlines MVP status.

The alliance-wide Oneworld Ruby benefits are:

• Priority check-in at Business Class counters
• Access to preferred or reserved seating
• Priority waitlisting when on standby

Oneworld Sapphire

Oneworld Sapphire status (the blue one) is equivalent to Qantas Gold, Cathay Pacific Gold, British Airways Silver, American Airlines Platinum or Alaska Airlines MVP Gold status.

In addition to all Oneworld Ruby benefits, these are the alliance-wide Oneworld Sapphire benefits:

• Airport lounge access (including domestic Qantas Club and International Business Class lounges)
• Priority boarding
• Extra baggage allowance (excludes Basic/Hand Baggage Only fares on British Airways)
• Priority baggage

Oneworld Emerald

Oneworld Emerald is the green tier. It matches to Qantas Platinum/Platinum One, Cathay Pacific Diamond, British Airways Gold, American Airlines Platinum Pro/Executive Platinum or Alaska Airlines MVP Gold 75K/100K status.

On top of all Oneworld Sapphire benefits, these are the alliance-wide Oneworld Emerald benefits:

• Access to international First Class lounges
• Priority check-in at First Class counters
• Access to security/immigration fast-track lanes at selected airports
• Additional extra baggage allowance (excludes Basic/Hand Baggage Only fares on British Airways)

SkyTeam status benefits

The SkyTeam alliance comprises of the following member airlines:

SkyTeam has two universal status tiers that are recognised across most of the alliance. As an exception, note that some SkyTeam airlines do not yet recognise ITA Airways status.

SkyTeam Elite

SkyTeam Elite status is equivalent to Delta Silver, Air France/KLM Silver, Garuda Indonesia Gold, Virgin Atlantic Silver or ITA Airways Plus status.

The alliance-wide SkyTeam Elite benefits are:

• Priority check-in
• Priority boarding
• Extra baggage allowance
• Preferred seating
• Priority reservation waitlist

SkyTeam Elite Plus

SkyTeam Elite Plus status is given to frequent flyers with Delta Gold (or above), Air France/KLM Gold/Platinum, Garuda Indonesia Platinum, Virgin Atlantic Silver or ITA Airways Premium/Executive status.

On top of the Elite benefits, SkyTeam Elite Plus members receive:

• Airport lounge access on international itineraries
• Priority baggage
• Additional extra baggage allowance
• Guaranteed availability of full Y-class Economy fares on sold-out flights when booking at least 24 hours before departure

Star Alliance status benefits

Star Alliance offers alliance-wide Silver and Gold status. This is recognised across all of the following Star Alliance carriers:

This is how each tier corresponds to different status levels of major Star Alliance carriers, and the alliance-wide benefits offered with each tier:

Star Alliance Silver

If you have Singapore Airlines Silver, Air New Zealand Silver, United Silver, Air Canada 25K/35K, Turkish Airlines Classic Plus or Lufthansa Frequent Traveller status, this automatically gets you Star Alliance Silver.

The alliance-wide benefits of Star Alliance Silver status are:

• Priority reservations waitlist
• Priority airport standby

Unfortunately, those are the only benefits afforded by all Star Alliance airlines.

Star Alliance Gold

Star Alliance Gold is significantly more valuable than Silver. This is equivalent to Singapore Airlines Gold, Air New Zealand Gold, United Gold (or above), Air Canada 50K (or above), Turkish Airlines Elite/Elite Plus or Lufthansa Senator status.

In addition to the Silver benefits, this is what you get across the whole of Star Alliance with Gold status:

• Priority check-in
• Priority baggage
• Airport lounge access
• Priority boarding
• Extra baggage allowance (excludes Air New Zealand, Lufthansa, Austrian, Swiss, Brussels Airlines & SAS fares that don’t include any checked baggage)
• Access to Gold Track priority lanes at selected airports
• Free upgrade on the Heathrow Express train

Star Alliance is the only alliance that offers a pathway for Australians to earn elite status without flying! With a HSBC Star Alliance credit card, you could get a year’s worth of Star Alliance Gold status just for signing up and spending at least $4,000 on the card within the first three months.

Many airlines offer additional benefits to their own frequent flyers

The benefits shown above are just the minimum set of guaranteed benefits across the whole of each alliance. Airlines often provide more benefits above and beyond these to their own frequent flyers. For example, United MileagePlus Silver members are eligible for complimentary upgrades and a free checked bag when flying with United Airlines.

Some carriers also offer extra benefits to frequent flyers of their partner airlines, based on bilateral agreements between individual airlines.

Why does Star Alliance Silver get so few benefits?

When comparing the reciprocal alliance-wide elite benefits offered by the three global alliances, Star Alliance Silver is an anomaly. Compared to Oneworld Ruby and SkyTeam Elite status, Star Alliance Silver really offers very little.

In general, airlines are often reluctant to give too much away to Silver frequent flyers because there are so many of them. If airlines provide too many benefits to Silver members – the elite tier with the most people – it could cost them too much and/or dilute the benefits available to higher-tiered members.

But that doesn’t explain why Star Alliance Silver is so uncompetitive compared to SkyTeam Elite and Oneworld Ruby.

We can only assume that either Star Alliance has intentionally reserved all the useful benefits for its Gold members. Or it’s also possible that the alliance member airlines could not unilaterally agree on which additional benefits to provide at the Silver tier. It’s worth mentioning here that the bigger airlines in the alliance, such as Lufthansa, may have more sway here than some of the smaller players.

Unfortunately, whatever the reason, the result is that Star Alliance Silver provides almost no practical benefits that frequent travellers will actually use. The two benefits that are offered to Star Alliance Silver members are only potentially useful when trying to get on a flight that’s already full.

Learn more about airline alliances

If you’re an AFF member, you can learn more about the three global airline alliances in our Training Courses! All logged-in AFF members can access the first two courses for free, which includes our training unit on airline alliances.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 70 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.