Now a mature alliance, Star Alliance is no longer in a growing phase, but instead focusing on delivering an improved portfolio of services to its customers. There is much to look forward to.
Simple tasks like assigning seats on partner carriers, receiving frequent flyer credit in a timely fashion, and searching for award space varies widely based upon what alliance carrier you use.
It often feels like the bane of my existence at Award Expert is calling Star Alliance partners for seat assignments. It’s something that consumes the time of my team because it’s simply not an easy process to do.
What if you could assign seats on partner airlines from the app of your favorite Star Alliance carrier, no matter where you booked the ticket? What if you could search for award space on all 28 carriers using any of the 28 alliance frequent flyer programs? Finally, what if you could submit a missing mileage claim (electronically instead of having to mail in a boarding stub) and hear back instantly?
A New Digital Services Platform (DSP)
These are all initiatives Star Alliance is working on. To that end, Star Alliance recently launched its own Digital Services Platform (DSP).
What is that? Star Alliance describes what the DSP can do–
The DSP can gather data provided by an individual member airline or third-party source and make it available to all members, enabling them to build it into their own customer-facing digital applications. The longer-term aim is to allow customers to use any member airline’s website or mobile application to obtain all the information they need for travel on several Star Alliance member airlines.
Star Alliance CEO Jeffrey Goh told me that he hopes to use to blockchain technology to improve alliance connectivity and this may well be the start of it.
Goh added–
Most frequent travellers have a ‘home airline’ in our network and would prefer to control their entire travel experience through a single app or website. We are therefore working to create central capabilities that can be shared for use by our individual members.
I’m so happy that Star Alliance is focusing on the basics. This will be a customer-friendly enhancement that will save every frequent flyer time.
We’ve already seen an example rolled out. You can now assign Singapore Airlines seat assignments on united.com and United Airlines seat assignments on singaporeairlines.com. Lufthansa is also tracking customer baggage, even on partner airlines, using its mobile app. There is more to come.
Four Star Alliance Service Enhancements
Star Alliance is working on four “products” that will make your life easier:
- Seamless partner seat assignments
- Paperless, efficient crediting of miles
- Baggage tracking using the Star Alliance app/carrier of your choice
- Online redemption for all 28 Star Alliance partners when using any Star Alliance loyalty program
On the last point, right now it is really only United MileagePlus, Aeroplan, Avianca Lifemiles, and ANA Mileage Club that offer robust online redemption tools for all alliance partners. Star Alliance hopes to roll out this sort of functionality for every carrier in the alliance. Thus, for example, if you have Asiana miles you can easily redeem for Lufthansa online instead of having to call to book.
CONCLUSION
Let’s face it: Star Alliance has fallen behind the times, a bit. SkyTeam already does several of the above services quite well. But playing catch up isn’t a bad thing and I am very happy to see Star Alliance focusing on meaningful customer enhancements.
Nice. Oneworld won’t even through check bags on separate PNR’s on Oneworld partners.
You write “Star Alliance CEO Jeffrey Goh told me that he hopes to use to blockchain technology….”
Did you actually speak to him or did he “tell” you via a press release?
I spoke to him. He’s a friend and former boss.
Rather than asking the members to use the respective home airlines apps…the focus should be on a centralized Star Alliance app or portal through which a user can book across the member airlines. THAT will be a unified common experience. I am a gold member and I agree with the author that Star Alliance is far behind in creating a uniform experience across all it’s member airlines
Is there a projected timeline or target date for this? It would be amazing to do all that is started above through my UA app. I just hope Star Alliance is a lot quicker and more efficient than UA has been in rolling out Polaris.
Hey Donald, according to the Star Alliance website by the end of 2018.
http://www.staralliance.com/en/news-article?newsArticleId=DSP&groupId=20184
This is fantastic news. As someone who typically only flies Star Alliance members I can’t wait to check out the redemption search function.
Great! Let’s hope they stay on schedule.
Hooray. I am struggling now to get seat assignments on Luftanhasa after booking through UAL. Many phone calls later, no luck. I go from business and first on UAL to anywhere they choose in economy on Lufthansa. Having been stuck in the center seat, last row, next to a vomiting passenger for 10+ hours before, I am wary. Should have booked them separately. Please announce when these features and service are up and running. Thank you!
The seat assignments are the biggest frustration, but I have yet to see this done well across any two airlines. Seamless award booking would be great but honestly where is the incentive to do that? Airlines want to make it as difficult as possible to use miles particularly on partners where they have to pay another company. So I will believe that when I see it.
Seat selection for partner carriers when booking on one airline is so critical…this is long overdue.
I can get on LH website and book travel which includes flights on UA metal and Select my seats in Biz class (on UA); But If I’m on the UA website booking travel (on LH metal) I can’t select seats (unless I call LH or Swiss etc)
This has always irritated me !
Lack of seating assignment on partner airlines is one of the biggies that has stopped me from booking more flights with partners on UA’s web site. This would be a major change if in fact it did happen.
One good thing I really like about Star Alliance is that the confirmation number is the same across airlines when traveling on multiple carriers. My itinerary last year had flights in ANA, EVA, and Singapore Air and was able to manage flights using the same confirmation number on every carrier’s website.
Compare this with Delta and you have to ask them what the confirmation number is on the partner airline.