The Best Programs to Earn Star Alliance Gold Status

Star Alliance Gold status is handy to have when flying with any of the 26 alliance members including Singapore Airlines, Air New Zealand, ANA, Thai Airways and Air Canada. Here’s a full overview of Star Alliance member airlines:

Once you’ve earned Star Alliance Silver or Gold status, you’ll enjoy reciprocal elite benefits (such as lounge access and priority at the airport) whenever you fly with any other Star Alliance airline. A full list of Star Alliance status benefits is available on the Star Alliance website.

With most Star Alliance frequent flyer programs, status is earned based on the number of miles you’ve flown (taking into account a multiplier for the fare class) on Star Alliance airlines throughout the year. You’ll earn miles at a different rate depending on the airline you’re flying and the fare class you’re booked in.

But some airlines make it a lot easier than others to achieve status with their loyalty program! So, which is the best frequent flyer program for earning Star Alliance status?

This guide analyses 10 Star Alliance frequent flyer programs that are likely to be of most interest to Australians. It explains how to earn the equivalent of Star Alliance Silver and Gold status with each program. The guide concludes with an analysis of the best overall Star Alliance frequent flyer programs.

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer

Singapore KrisFlyer is a popular choice for Australian travellers for several reasons. Firstly, as a Virgin Australia partner, KrisFlyer status is recognised when flying with Virgin Australia. Secondly, there are many opportunities to earn KrisFlyer miles in Australia through credit cards and KrisFlyer miles are a valuable currency.

However, earning KrisFlyer status is more difficult than earning status with some other Star Alliance programs. Here are the requirements to earn and maintain KrisFlyer status:

• KrisFlyer Elite Silver (Star Alliance Silver) – earn 25,000 Elite miles within 12 consecutive months
• KrisFlyer Elite Gold (Star Alliance Gold) – earn 50,000 Elite miles within 12 consecutive months

Status is valid for 12 months from the date it is earned. See the Singapore Airlines website for more details.

KrisFlyer Elite miles can be earned on all Star Alliance airlines. You can also earn Elite miles on Virgin Atlantic (excluding trans-Atlantic flights), as well as codeshare flights operated by Virgin Australia or Vistara. But the big catch for Australians is that you can’t earn Elite miles for Virgin Australia marketed flights – only codeshares with an “SQ” flight number. There are no Singapore Airlines codeshares on Virgin Australia flights to/from Bali, and these can only be booked in conjunction with a Singapore Airlines flight.

United MileagePlus

United MileagePlus can be a good program if you’re just starting out with Star Alliance because it offers a status match. With the United status match challenge, you can get four months of free United MilagePlus Premier status and extend this by flying on United Airlines during the trial period.

Another benefit of United MileagePlus is that it’s one of the only Star Alliance frequent flyer programs to award miles on the cheapest Economy fare classes when flying with Air New Zealand and Lufthansa Group airlines (including Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian and Brussels Airlines).

United also partners with Virgin Australia, which is a “preferred partner” of United. MileagePlus Gold, Platinum and 1K members can access benefits including lounge access when flying on Virgin Australia, and since August 2022, it’s also possible to earn Premier Qualifying Credits for Virgin Australia flights.

Since United made changes to its frequent flyer program in January 2020, earning or retaining United MileagePlus status requires quite a lot of flying – especially if you don’t live in the United States. You now need to earn Premier Qualifying Points (PQP) and/or Premier Qualifying Flights (PQF) to earn or maintain United status. 1 PQP is equivalent to 1 U.S. Dollar spent on United flights, excluding taxes. (For flights marketed by partner airlines, the earn rate is calculated based on the distance flown and a multiplier based on the fare class purchased.) Meanwhile, 1 PQF is equivalent to 1 flight.

There is an additional requirement to take at least four flights operated by United Airlines or United Express each year. The only way to do this without visiting the USA would be to book two return trips with United from Manila to Koror, Palau.

Here are the requirements for earning and maintaining United Airlines status in 2022 (note that these have been temporarily reduced by around 25%):

• Premier Silver (Star Alliance Silver) – 8 PQF + 3,000 PQP or 3,500 PQP only within a calendar year
• Premier Gold (Star Alliance Gold) – 16 PQF + 6,000 PQP or 7,000 PQP only within a calendar year

Status is valid until the end of January in the second year after being earned (i.e. the rest of the calendar year, plus 13 months). See the United website for more details.

United status would best suit somebody flying regularly to or within the United States. Unfortunately, if you have United status, you don’t automatically get access to United Club lounges when flying within the USA (even if you have a First Class ticket). But you are eligible for complimentary upgrades, Economy Plus seating and other extra benefits that are only available when flying on United aircraft.

United is also one of several Star Alliance airlines to offer lifetime status through its Million Miler program. You can receive lifetime Gold status after earning 1 million miles, and there are other benefits that kick in after reaching 2, 3 and 4 million lifetime miles.

Aegean Miles+Bonus

Earning Star Alliance Gold status via the Aegean Miles+Bonus program is relatively easy, especially if you visit Greece at least once per year!

If you’re able to take at least 4 Aegean or Olympic flights each year, Aegean halves the number of tier miles needed to qualify for Star Alliance Gold status. And once you already have Gold status, the renewal requirement is halved again! Aegean and Olympic Air are based in Athens, so if you’re in Europe it’s relatively easy to tick off the four flights (e.g. by flying Rome-Athens-Santorini and back).

Here are the requirements for earning Aegean Miles+Bonus status:

• Silver (Star Alliance Silver): Earn 12,000 tier miles within 12 months (including at least 2 Aegean/Olympic flights) or 24,000 tier miles otherwise
• Gold (Star Alliance Gold): Earn 24,000 tier miles within 12 months (including at least 4 Aegean/Olympic flights) or 48,000 tier miles otherwise

Here are the requirements to renew Aegean Miles+Bonus status:

• Silver (Star Alliance Silver): Earn 8,000 tier miles within 12 months (including at least 2 Aegean/Olympic flights) or 16,000 tier miles otherwise
• Gold (Star Alliance Gold): Earn 12,000 tier miles within 12 months (including at least 4 Aegean/Olympic flights) or 24,000 tier miles otherwise

See the Aegean website for details.

Plus, until 31 May 2023, Aegean is reducing all of these requirements by 25%! This means you could upgrade to Star Alliance Gold status in 2022 or early 2023 by taking 4 Aegean or Olympic Air flights and earning just 18,000 tier miles. And renewing Star Alliance Gold temporarily requires only 9,000 tier miles. This makes Aegean Miles+Bonus status the easiest Star Alliance status to earn from scratch in 2022!

It’s also possible to purchase tier miles from Aegean for €50 per 500 tier miles. There is an annual purchase limit of 1,000 tier miles for Blue members (if you have no status), 2,000 tier miles for Silver members or 3,000 tier miles for Gold members. Theoretically, this means you could requalify for Gold status by earning as few as 9,000 tier miles per year from flights in a normal year.

Aegean miles are also fairly valuable when redeeming for Star Alliance awards. Aegean does not offer lifetime status.

Asiana Club

Asiana Club is unique because your status is valid for not one, but two years! Your status resets at the end of each two-year “membership term”, which is based on the date you joined the Asiana Club program. For example, if you joined Asiana Club on 1 May 2022 and subsequently earned Gold status any time in the following two years, your status would theoretically remain valid until 1 May 2026.

However, Asiana will merge with Korean Air in around 2024. The fate of Asiana Club beyond this time has not yet been announced, but it is likely that the program will either be merged with Korean Air SKYPASS or cease to exist.

In the meantime, ere are the requirements for earning Asiana Club status:

• Asiana Club Gold (Star Alliance Silver): Earn 20,000 miles on Star Alliance flights or take 30 Asiana flights within 24 months
• Asiana Club Diamond (Star Alliance Gold): Earn 40,000 miles on Star Alliance flights or take 50 Asiana flights within 24 months

Here are the requirements for maintaining Asiana Club status:

• Asiana Club Gold (Star Alliance Silver): Earn 15,000 miles on Star Alliance flights or take 20 Asiana flights within 24 months
• Asiana Club Diamond (Star Alliance Gold): Earn 30,000 miles on Star Alliance flights or take 30 Asiana flights within 24 months

You can even qualify or re-qualify for Gold status with 5,000 fewer miles, or Diamond status for 10,000 fewer miles, through Asiana affiliate credit cards. However, these cards are not available in Australia. See the Asiana website for details.

Asiana Club also offers lifetime Star Alliance Gold status if you earn 500,000 miles or take 500 Asiana flights. This makes Asiana Club one of the easiest programs for earning lifetime Star Alliance status!

Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles

Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles is another program with fairly generous Star Alliance status qualification requirements. As with Asiana, Turkish Airlines status is valid for two years.

Here are the requirements for earning Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles status:

• Classic Plus (Star Alliance Silver): Earn 25,000 status miles within 12 months
• Elite (Star Alliance Gold): Earn 40,000 status miles within 12 months

Here are the requirements for maintaining Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles status for a further two years:

• Classic Plus (Star Alliance Silver): Earn 17,000 status miles in 1 year or 35,000 status miles within 2 years
• Elite (Star Alliance Gold) for non-Turkish residents: Earn 25,000 status miles in 1 year or 37,500 status miles within 2 years
• Elite (Star Alliance Gold) for Turkish residents: Earn 30,000 status miles in 1 year or 45,000 status miles within 2 years

See the Turkish Airlines website for details.

With Turkish Airlines, you can even purchase status miles if you’re a little short of requalifying for Classic Plus or Elite status! Classic Plus members may purchase up to 5,000 status miles in order to extend their status beyond the two-year expiry. Elite members can purchase up to 10,000 status miles. The price is USD70 per 1,000 status miles.

If you’re starting out with the Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles program, you may also be interested in the Turkish Airlines status match.

Air New Zealand Airpoints

Air New Zealand Airpoints is not a great value frequent flyer program. It’s essentially a revenue-based program, meaning there are no real sweet spots when it comes to redeeming points. But as it’s one of the most dominant Star Alliance carriers in Australia, we thought it would be worth looking at Air New Zealand’s criteria.

Unlike most Star Alliance programs, Air New Zealand status is earned by collecting “Status Points” which work in a similar way to status credits with Qantas or Virgin Australia. On Air New Zealand flights, you’ll be told the number of status points earned at the time of booking. For Star Alliance flights, the earn rate is based on the fare class and distance of the flight.

Air New Zealand, unhelpfully, does not publish a table telling you how many status points you’ll earn for a given flight. You’ll need to use their calculator to work this out for each individual route and airline. If a partner airline route has not been added to the calculator, there is no way to know what you’ll earn!

Here are the requirements for earning Air New Zealand Airpoints status:

• Silver (Star Alliance Silver): Earn 450 status points within 12 months
• Gold (Star Alliance Gold): Earn 900 status points within 12 months

To retain your status in the following year, you’d only need to earn 90% of the usual amount of status points.

At least half of these status points must be earned on Air New Zealand operated flights, qualifying partner airline flights or Star Alliance qualifying flights. See the Air New Zealand website for details.

If you’re a regular flyer on Air New Zealand domestic flights, it could make sense for you to use the Airpoints program. This is especially the case if you’re often flying in fare classes that don’t earn miles with Star Alliance partner airlines, or perhaps if you’re a heavy user of co-branded Airpoints credit cards. As an alternative, if you’re a regular Air New Zealand flyer, you could consider using United MileagePlus as Air New Zealand flights earn at reasonably generous rates with the MileagePlus program.

Air Canada Aeroplan

Air Canada is another North American airline that partners with Virgin Australia. It is possible to earn Status Qualifying Miles on Virgin Australia domestic flights (only), but there are no status benefits whatsoever for Aeroplan elite members when travelling on Virgin Australia.

To earn Aeroplan status, you’d need to earn a combination of Status Qualifying Miles (SQM) or Status Qualifying Segments (SQS), plus Status Qualifying Dollars (SQD). SQDs are earned for every dollar spent on an Air Canada tickets. However, SQDs can only be earned for flights operated by Air Canada, Air Canada Express or Air Canada Rouge, and flights on Star Alliance partners when booked on Air Canada ticket stock. Other flights on partner airlines do not earn SQDs, and the SQD requirement is not waived for non-Canadian residents. Therefore, Aeroplan status is most suited to people regularly flying with Air Canada itself.

Here are the requirements for earning Air Canada Aeroplan status:

• Elite 25K (Star Alliance Silver) – 25,000 SQM or 25 SQS, plus 3,000 SQD
• Elite 50K (Star Alliance Gold) – 50,000 SQM or 50 SQS, plus 6,000 SQD

See the Air Canada website for details.

Air Canada also offers lifetime status.

Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus

As Thai Airways has a relatively large presence in Australia – and partners with Amex Membership Rewards – we thought it would be worth looking at the requirements for earning status with Thai’s Royal Orchid Plus program. As it happens, earning Silver status with Thai is not all that difficult. But earning Gold status is considerably harder. As Thai has also significantly devalued Royal Orchid Plus miles in recent years, we would not generally recommend crediting flights to Royal Orchid Plus.

Here are the requirements for earning and maintaining Royal Orchid Plus status:

• Silver (Star Alliance Silver) – earn 10,000 qualifying miles within 12 months or 15,000 qualifying miles within 24 months
• Gold (Star Alliance Gold) – earn 50,000 qualifying miles within 12 months or 80,000 qualifying miles within 24 months or fly 40 international Thai Airways sectors (excluding G/V/W/L fare classes)

Status is valid for 12 or 24 months, depending on how the status was earned. See the Thai Airways website for details.

South African Airways Voyager

South African Airways Voyager has the potential to be an interesting program for Australians because South African Airways partners with Virgin Australia. You can get reciprocal Voyager status benefits when flying on Virgin Australia, however tier miles (which count towards status) are only earned when flying on South African Airways or Star Alliance partners. It is worth noting also that South African Airways has had ongoing financial difficulties in recent years.

Here are the requirements for earning South African Airways Voyager status in 2022 (note that these criteria are reduced for 2022 compared to normal):

• Silver (Star Alliance Silver) – earn 20,000 tier miles in a calendar year
• Gold (Star Alliance Gold) – earn 45,000 tier miles in a calendar year

Status is valid until the end of the following calendar year. To renew your status, you would need to earn 95% of the required tier miles for that status level during the following year. See the South African Airways website for details.

South African Airways also offers Platinum and Lifetime Platinum status. Lifetime Platinum is earned after 6 consecutive years at Platinum status, or by earning 720,000 tier miles over 4-6 years.

Ethiopian ShebaMiles

The Ethiopian Airlines ShebaMiles program is admittedly a bit left-field. Prior to 2022, it used to be one of the best Star Alliance programs for anyone looking to qualify on sectors, rather than miles flown. For example, Ethiopian ShebaMiles was popular among European flyers that take a lot of short hops on Star Alliance airlines within Europe. As these are typically short flights, those people might struggle to qualify on miles but find it relatively easy to fly the minimum required segments (previously 20 segments for Silver or 40 to earn Gold status).

Unfortunately, Ethiopian Airlines changed its rules in 2022. Not only did the increase the number of annual segments required to earn ShebaMiles status, but only flights operated by Ethiopian Airlines now count towards the segment requirement. As such, this program is no longer that useful for people who don’t regularly fly with Ethiopian Airlines.

Here are the requirements for earning and maintaining Ethiopian ShebaMiles status:

• Silver (Star Alliance Silver): Earn 25,000 status miles or fly 25 qualifying segments in a calendar year
• Gold (Star Alliance Gold): Earn 50,000 status miles or fly 50 qualifying segments in a calendar year

See the Ethiopian Airlines website for details.

Which Star Alliance program is best for me?

The answer to this question will be different for everyone. But in general, Asiana Club, Aegean Miles+Bonus and Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles appear to offer the easiest overall qualification for Star Alliance Gold status when travelling on a mix of Star Alliance airlines.

You should beware, however, that each frequent flyer program will award miles at different rates for each airline and fare class. With some frequent flyer programs, many of the cheaper fare classes will not earn you any miles when you fly with a Star Alliance partner airline. So, if you regularly fly on just one or a small handful of Star Alliance carriers, check what you’d earn for the fare types you usually by when crediting to other Star Alliance programs. (An easy place to check is the Where to Credit website.)

For example, the cheaper Economy fare classes on Lufthansa Group airlines (Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian and Brussels Airlines), such as K class, do not earn any miles except when crediting to United MileagePlus or Lufthansa Miles&More. (We have not included Miles&More in this article as it’s not particularly good value for Australians).

Similarly, the cheaper Air New Zealand fares don’t earn anything with most Star Alliance programs – but generally do when crediting to Airpoints or United MileagePlus. Singapore Airlines Economy Lite fares also don’t earn any miles with Star Alliance partner airlines – but they do earn KrisFlyer Elite miles. This is why it’s important to check the fare class before booking!

You can discuss this topic on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: Looking for help with what Star Alliance FF program to use.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 80 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.