Asiana Airlines appears prepared to void already-ticketed Star Alliance partner award reservations for travel after its alliance exit. Even if it warned members this might happen, that does not make the policy any less customer-unfriendly.
Asiana Refuses To Honor Existing Star Alliance Award Tickets After Exit
Asiana Airlines will leave Star Alliance on December 16, 2026, at 23:59 Korea Standard Time, as it is folded into Korean Air and ultimately SkyTeam.
We’ve known that for quite some time, but what is surprising is the way Asiana says it will treat some already-ticketed Star Alliance award reservations after that date.
As first flagged by LoyaltyLobby, Asiana’s own FAQ includes the following:
Q. I have already ticketed a Star Alliance award flight using Asiana miles for travel on or after December 17, 2026. Since this falls outside the flight dates listed above, am I unable to fly?
Even if already ticketed, these tickets will no longer be valid for travel following our exit from Star Alliance. We recommend contacting the Asiana Airlines Reservation Center to review your reservation and discuss cancellation or alternative itinerary options. Affected tickets will be fully refunded and miles reinstated without penalty.
That is remarkable, though some context is necessary.
To be clear, this appears to apply to Asiana Club members who used Asiana miles to book award travel on Star Alliance partners for travel after Asiana leaves Star Alliance. This does not impact Star Alliance awards on Asiana booked through programs like United MileagePlus or Air Canada Aeroplan for travel on Asiana, which have been blocked beyond 17 December all year (my understanding is there are no cases of 2027 partner award bookings on Asiana).
But even noting this is limited to Asiana Club redemptions, this is a terrible policy.
Why Was Asiana Selling These Awards In The First Place?
It is true that Asiana warned members that Star Alliance award travel would need to be completed before the exit date. In fact, Asiana posted a notice in December 2025 saying that all travel with Star Alliance award tickets must be completed by the day before the merger, regardless of when the ticket was issued.
But that raises the obvious question: why was Asiana selling these tickets in the first place?
If an award ticket was issued, confirmed, and ticketed, why should the passenger be punished later because Asiana was not clear on its exit date from Star Alliance? Airlines leaving alliances is not new. Mergers are not new. Award tickets surviving alliance changes is not an unheard of concept.
When LATAM dissolved its partnership with Alaska Airlines, I booked an award booked with Alaska miles for travel well into the future. That ticket remained (and still remains) valid. That is how this normally works. Once ticketed, the ticket is honored, even if changes may become restricted after the partnership ends.
It is one thing to say, “No new bookings after this date.” It is another thing to say, “The ticket we already issued will no longer be valid.”
Will Korean Regulators Step In (Again)?
A refund and mileage redeposit without penalty is not an adequate remedy if the passenger booked in good faith and now has to replace a valuable award with something far more expensive or less convenient.
The policy also appears internally confusing. Asiana’s own chart says award ticketing and travel periods vary by airline, and for Aegean, Avianca, Croatia Airlines, and Turkish Airlines, the chart appears to show ticketing through December 16, 2026, with travel permitted through December 16, 2027. Then the FAQ says tickets for travel after December 17, 2026, will not be valid.
Perhaps this is sloppy drafting, but passengers should not be left guessing when an issued ticket is at stake.
What surprises me most is the regulatory angle. Korean regulators have been closely involved in the Korean Air–Asiana merger and were strict enough that Korean Air was effectively blocked for years from devaluing SKYPASS awards. If regulators cared that much about loyalty program members before the merger, why allow Asiana to strand members who already redeemed miles for valid tickets?
Maybe there are few affected passengers. Maybe Asiana blocked most post-exit Star Alliance redemptions long ago (I welcome data points in the comments). But if even a small number of valid Star Alliance partner awards were ticketed for travel after December 17, 2026, Asiana should honor them.
CONCLUSION
Asiana leaving Star Alliance is expected. Refusing to honor already-ticketed Star Alliance partner awards after the exit date is not.
If Asiana did not want members traveling on Star Alliance partners after December 16, 2026, it should not have issued those tickets. Once a ticket is issued, the default should be simple: honor it. A refund and mileage redeposit may be better than nothing, but it is not the same as carrying the passenger as booked. This is not how alliance exits should be handled, and I am surprised Korean regulators would tolerate it.
Have you been impacted by this?
Hat Tip: One Mile At A Time
“This does not impact Star Alliance awards on Asiana booked through programs like United MileagePlus or Air Canada Aeroplan for travel on Asiana”… so it’s really not gonna affect most of us.
It didn’t affect me but I think this is criminal. They issued the tickets so it’s up to them to figure how to make the passengers whole.
Far more astounding is that this merger was even allowed in the first place. The reality is that without two carriers (I am not counting ULCC’s like Jeju etc) we are going to see significant service decay and rising fares. There is just no incentive towards the consumer. Further, given Korean safety issues in the past it opens the question of a return to problems seen before.
The countries in Asia that have two or more top carriers (not including Singapore as it’s so small) all maintain higher standards of service and lower fares (Taiwan and Japan). The nations that allow a monopoly and a single flagship carrier are mired in problems and inconsistencies like Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia.
Well said ! Amazed that this merger was allowed to happen.
And I miss the good old days of wide open Korean awards that were easily transferable with bank currency.
I’m honestly not surprised the merger was allowed to happen. Service standards at KE are what they are, have been this way for a while, and are unlikely to change. If anyone wants the highest service standards they don’t fly KE to begin with. KE+OZ are less than 40% of traffic at ICN. Dominant, yes, But there is also plenty of competition from the independent LCCs (who together carry noticeably more than OZ), and all of the other full service carriers to serve ICN. It isn’t clear that the market can sustain more than one full service carrier, and the Korean government wasn’t interested in bailing out/subsidizing OZ.