Oneworld CEO hopes “this year” for alliance-wide upgrades
Yes, we’ve heard it before, but maybe the fifth time is the charm…
By David Flynn, July 3 2026
Imagine being able to use your frequent flyer miles or points held with any Oneworld airline – such as Avios, Qantas Points, AAdvantage Miles or Asia Miles – to unlock upgrades to business or first class with any other Oneworld airline.
It’s already possible within the Star Alliance family, and it’s been promised – again and again – by Oneworld.
Oneworld-wide upgrades were initially due to launch in 2020, although we all know what happened that particular year.
The timetable was later reset to 2023, then 2024, and then 2025.
So should we take recently-minted Oneworld CEO Ole Orvér at his word when he says alliance-wide upgrades are back on track for the end of this year?
“It has been moving a little bit slowly,” Orvér admits to Executive Traveller, “but I’m happy to see now it’s moving quicker.”
“And we will get to it… hopefully we’ll get this done through the second half of this year.”
The first step remains for airlines to establish reciprocal, bilateral agreements between themselves, Orvér says, “before we have a consistent upgrade offering across Oneworld.”
Some airlines have already been doing this for years: Qantas and American Airlines, for example.
Qantas and American Airlines were early to establish 'two-way' points upgrades.
The end goal, Orvér says, is not only for all airlines to have this shared capability, but for alliance-wide upgrade requests to be seamless and ideally done straight from the app, “so it just works.”
Oneworld’s role will be to provide the technology platform which shuttles upgrade requests between airlines, connecting frequent flyer points with seat availability.
Oneworld has previously ruled out establishing a virtual ‘Oneworld Points’ currency, which would serve as a baseline for converting the miles or points of one member airline to another.
As a result, participating airlines will decide the ‘exchange rate’ between their respective rewards currencies.
When you consider all the complexities involved, and that Oneworld has failed to crack this nut year after year, it’s difficult to imagine these alliance-wide upgrades could be sitting under the Christmas Tree come December 2026.
But maybe in 2027, or 2028…
David Flynn travelled to Honolulu as a guest of Hawaiian Airlines and Oneworld.
27 Sep 2013
Total posts 7
What would be the upgrade pecking order for One World upgrades on Qantas? Classic points upgrades first, followed by bid upgrades, then One World upgrades after that?
Very rarely would all Classic and bid upgrades be successful, as it's not uncommon for the requests to far exceed the number of seats available in the Business Class cabin.
It's all very well to have the ability to do One World upgrades, however I'd be very surprised if many people are successful with getting them.
03 Mar 2023
Total posts 61
All I see is the quote saying "hopefully" it will happen in the second half of the year. In other words there's no way it will happen. The headline is a bit misleading..
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
16 Jan 2018
Total posts 65
Kinda agree with the sentiment. Getting upgrade on other airline that is not your 'home' FF program is a nice, but delusional, concept.
Oneworld should focus on getting the basics right, like through checkin on separate tickets regardless of the first airline you fly with. Not sexy perhaps but thoroughly appreciated by many frequent flyers and benefit all frequent flyers.
In contrast, alliance wide upgrade only benefits the highest of the highest frequent flyers, if at all. Not much love coming your way really.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer - Chairmans Lounge
01 Sep 2011
Total posts 431
I certainly would not be happy if ive applied for a points upgrade on qantas and someone gets it over me, even if it costs them extra points and may have applied earlier. Ive given QF loyalty for 35+ years and I expect full loyalty in return, as an example.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
04 Apr 2025
Total posts 7
Considering Qantas makes people wait until the very last minute (platinum etc not withstanding) I can see a lot of lower tier QFFF members using their points for instant upgrades on the likes of Cathay, JAL, Finnair etc.
I earn points to travel in business for my leisure trips (which I book quite far in advance), not to wait to see if maybe I might be lucky enough 2 days in advance of travel to get an upgrade. I can see this system being lucrative as I’ve used it on Star Airlines and it works very well if you have a paid ticket.
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