{"id":4086,"date":"2019-03-21T12:50:04","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T17:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=4086"},"modified":"2019-03-21T12:50:10","modified_gmt":"2019-03-21T17:50:10","slug":"american-airlines-and-china-southern-launch-frequent-flyer-partnership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=4086","title":{"rendered":"American Airlines and China Southern Launch Frequent Flyer Partnership"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Despite repeated claims from all sides that China Southern has no interest in joining the Oneworld alliance, American Airlines and Asia\u2019s largest carrier are moving forward with a frequent flyer partnership. The new arrangement announced Wednesday will allow American\u2019s AAdvantage and China Southern\u2019s Sky Pearl Club members the ability to earn and redeem miles on each other\u2019s flights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mileage earning for passengers will go into effect March 21, and online availability is planned for later this year. In the meantime, phone reservations agents at American are already reporting the ability to book China Southern flights through Sabre, its booking system. An earn chart, which shows how China Southern fares will earn miles in American\u2019s loyalty program, has also been posted to American\u2019s site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American and China Southern\u2019s partnership comes at a time in which Oneworld has been cool on formally pulling the Asian carrier fully into the alliance \u2014 though it\u2019s not clear which side the hesitation is coming from. At Oneworld\u2019s 20th anniversary in February, Ron Gurney, CEO of Oneworld shared that the alliance had \u201cno plans\u201d to add the carrier in full. Instead, he suggested that China Southern might join Oneworld as a Connect partner, a new type of \u201calliance light\u201d that allows passengers to connect onto partners and still earn benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The relationship announced between American and China Southern on Wednesday is more thorough than that. In addition to the ability to earn and spend miles reciprocally, loyalty members can book flights directly through the other carrier\u2019s website and still reap benefits. In other words, the relationship is almost like having an alliance partner without having China Southern in the alliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be clear, many expected some sort of deeper relationship to bear fruit after American bought a stake in China Southern in 2017. Only a year after that investment, China Southern bowed out of the Skyteam alliance, leading many to speculate that it planned to join Oneworld. Ever since Gurney\u2019s comments and the big push around Oneworld Connect, however, that enthusiasm seems to have faded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That doesn\u2019t mean that China Southern may not eventually end up joining Oneworld. Both airlines and alliances have famously been coy about when new members are coming onboard and China Southern will need to tread lightly in the back yard of Cathay Pacific, another major Oneworld carrier based out of Hong Kong. At the very least, AAdvantage members anxious to fly deeper into China will now get minimal frequent flyer benefits. Other Oneworld passengers will have to wait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Story by Grant Martin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite repeated claims from all sides that China Southern has no interest in joining the Oneworld alliance, American Airlines and Asia\u2019s largest carrier are moving forward with a frequent flyer partnership. The new arrangement announced Wednesday will allow American\u2019s AAdvantage and China Southern\u2019s Sky Pearl Club members the ability to earn and redeem miles on each other\u2019s flights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[797,89,2203,1397,868,1103],"tags":[3857,118,2415,116,2126,2002,1937,1925,1015,1024,446,2698,3859,482,2291,2290,3864,2858,2859,1843,704,2687,3861,412,439,1016,1541,3858,3860,3863,3862,755,2864,785,1177],"class_list":["post-4086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-airline-news","category-aviation-news","category-finance-news","category-stock-news","category-transportation-news","category-travel-news","tag-aadvantage","tag-airlines","tag-alliance","tag-american","tag-asia","tag-book","tag-booking","tag-carrier","tag-cathay","tag-ceo","tag-china","tag-club","tag-earn","tag-flights","tag-flyer","tag-frequent","tag-gurney","tag-hong","tag-kong","tag-largest","tag-launch","tag-members","tag-miles","tag-news","tag-oneworld","tag-pacific","tag-partnership","tag-pearl","tag-redeem","tag-ron","tag-sabre","tag-sky","tag-skyteam","tag-southern","tag-system"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4086"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4091,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4086\/revisions\/4091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}