Why I chose OneWorld

When you travel a lot, or you plan to travel a lot, mileage is a big deal. Mileage will get you benefits like shorter queue line at the counters, free upgrades, better seats and eventually free tickets. Nowadays there are three big airline alliances, OneWorld, SkyTeam and Star Alliance, being the last one the biggest one.

I chose OneWorld for several reasons, the first one is that American Airlines´ AAdvantage, is the best frequent flyer program in the world, for just three or four tickets in coach I can get one free and they also give you plenty of upgrade tickets (4 or 5 for each 10k miles). Eventhough I don´t really like AA for it´s service, with LAN, another OneWorld airline, they have the best fares from Chile to North America. I can fly to Miami or Dallas, for as low as U$1000, and the best part is, that with AA they almost always just give you the domestic flights for free. It´s not free-free, but a ticket to Miami is U$1000, and a ticket to San Francisco via Miami is just U$1100, if you add two stopovers it will be U$1200 or so.

The second big reason is LAN is part of OneWorld, LAN is a chilean based airline, which I think is the one of the best airlines in the world. They pretty much control all the traffic in southamerica, so when I have to travel short filghts, I use LAN and when I have to go to the United States, I can use AA or even LAN combined with AA for the same fare.

The third reason and probably the most important, is that I can fly to Asia in the shortest time possible. I can use LAN to travel up to Australia with connection in New Zealand, and afterwards use Qantas or Cathay Pacific to get to Asia. If I used SkyTeam or Star Alliance, I would have only two options, make a connection in the UInited States – which would make my flight 10 hours longer – or go the other way around with Air France to Paris and afterwards Hong Kong. I must admit Air France is my favorite airline, but I always prefer a cheap, short crappy flight, than a long, expensive, nice flight.