# Tell me about frequent flier programs.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-frequent-flier-programs/483941>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [February 1, 2009, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-frequent-flier-programs/483941 "2009-02-01T01:26:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2009, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-frequent-flier-programs/483941/21 "2009-02-02T23:39:20Z")

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> [@ShibbOleth](#):
>
> The one bright spot may be that Continental has just left their FF partnership with Delta and Northwest and joined Star Alliance, which includes United, US Airways, Lufthansa, British Airways, Thai Airways, Air Canada, etc. It’s a fairly large group so one can hope that they might be able to find something available on one of them and you can receive FF points on all.

This could end up being somewhere between a wash and a net bad thing, also. You are all of a sudden competing with a larger group of people with a large group of miles who will be chasing the same seats you may be.

The airlines have been pretty shameless in recent years about goosing short term revenue by selling miles to third parties (credit cards, etc.). All else being equal, you’d expect the troubled airlines to be worse offenders. Getting rid of Delta and Northwest may help, but United and US Airways (and for that matter Air Canada) have likely been churning out tons of miles in recent years too, given their respecitve parlous conditions of late.

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