What is Star Alliance Rewards?

Star Alliance is not only the world’s largest airline group, ahead of Oneworld and SkyTeam – it’s also the only alliance with its own rewards program and points currency.

While each Star Alliance member airline maintains a dedicated loyalty program with the usual frequent flyer points and status tiers, there’s also the Star Alliance Rewards platform, underpinned by a currency called Star Alliance Points.

What is Star Alliance Rewards?

Star Alliance Rewards is a special loyalty program created by the Star Alliance group, with the intention of tapping into the same rich revenue stream which has turned airline loyalty programs into highly profitable businesses in their own right.

However, Star Alliance Rewards doesn’t replace the frequent flyer program of any member airlines.

Rather, it’s more a frequent shopper program launched alongside the co-branded HSBC Star Alliance credit card, with which you can earn points on purchases big and small.

And, at least for now, Star Alliance Rewards exists only as a mechanism for using that credit card.

One of the biggest drawcards of the HSBC Star Alliance credit card is that you can easily gain complimentary Star Alliance Gold status through on-the-ground spending, without even taking a single flight.

With worldwide access to over 1,000 airport lounges, priority boarding and other time-saving travel perks, this makes it the ultimate fast-track to Star Alliance Gold status.

What are Star Alliance Points?

Star Alliance Points are the loyalty currency of Star Alliance Rewards, in much the same way as KrisFlyer miles is the currency of Singapore Airlines’ KrisFlyer program.

Every dollar you spend on the HSBC Star Alliance credit card – currently available only in Australia – earns Star Alliance Points, starting at 1 Star Alliance Point for every AUD$1.

Transferring Star Alliance Points to airline rewards programs

At the time of writing, the only thing you can do with Star Alliance Points is to transfer them to one of seven ‘participating frequent flyer programs’ to book a point-based reward flight, request an upgrade, buy a lounge pass, and so on.

Those airline programs, and their Star Alliance Points conversion rates, are as follows:

• Air Canada Aeroplan: 1,000 Star Alliance Points = 800 Aeroplan points
• Air New Zealand Koru Airpoints: 1,250 Star Alliance Points = 10 Airpoints Dollars
• EVA Air Infinity MileageLands: 1,000 Star Alliance Points = 800 Infinity MileageLands Miles
• Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer: 1,000 Star Alliance Points = 800 KrisFlyer miles
• South African Airways Voyager: 1,000 Star Alliance Points = 800 Voyager miles
• Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus: 1,000 Star Alliance Points = 800 Royal Orchid Plus miles
• United Airlines MileagePlus: 1,000 Star Alliance Points = 800 MileagePlus Miles

So where’s Lufthansa, Swiss, SAS, Turkish Airlines and the rest of the Star Alliance family?

“Not all member carriers of the Star Alliance network are participating in this program through their respective frequent flyer programs,” Star Alliance says.

Can you transfer points between airlines?

What about the option of transferring points directly from one airline’s loyalty program to another – for example, turning Air New Zealand Airpoints to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles?

This isn’t something that can be done via Star Alliance Rewards.

The program simply facilitates a one-way transfer from Star Alliance Points to the points or miles of a participating airline.

But given that Star Alliance Points serve as a ‘common’ currency with set exchange rates for each participating airline’s own currency: then yes, in theory this could be enabled further down the track.

In that scenario, Star Alliance Rewards members would need only to have each airline frequent flyer account set up in the Rewards Portal and then agree to the Star Alliance Points conversion rate for swapping currencies.

Also read: The ultimate fast-track to Star Alliance Gold status