Star MegaDO 4 is coming up in November. I’m so envious of those who get to participate…though I’ll be on a cruise so I guess I’ll live. 🙂 Randy Petersen is generously donating 2 seats on the charter for Boardingarea bloggers to give away in the Win a Seat with Randy Petersen contest.
You can read all about the contest rules here. The condensed version is this: All you need to do is comment to this post with an answer a question. Enter only once on this blog and include your email address so you can be contacted. You can enter between now and 11:59PM Mountain Time on Sunday, October 7, 2012. After the entry period closes, one entry from this blog will be randomly chosen and submitted for an opportunity to win one of the 2 available seats on the Star MegaDO 4 charter. You’ll get a coach seat, hotel accommodations, and $250 dollars in spending money. Keep in mind that 29 BA bloggers are participating, and you can enter once with each of them to increase your chances of winning a seat on the MegaDO 4 charter. A big thank you to Randy and good luck to everyone!!!
And now for the question:
What is your favorite feature of the Star Alliance?
i’m in a hub city!
A hub within easy driving distance.
lounge access.
Saving mileage for Lufthansa first class award travel.
My favorite feature is the coverage
Is the great destination coverage that all the airlines can provide.
The easy access to miles through US Airways.
Lounges
i love all the choices!!! too many!!1
The large choice of airlines for international travel.
Partner award redemption.
Plenty of award availability options most of the time.
Star Alliance goes where I want to go-especially on reward travel. They we also very good to us on SMD2 and SMD4
Flight coverage
All the partner airlines are great.
Reciprocal lounge access.
I’ll echo everyone else and say the best thing is that the numerous member airlines can get you pretty much anywhere you want to go on the planet.
I’d say the free extra baggage allowance. I moved 3 times in the last 5 years, and 3 free checked bags saved me so much money!
Flying all over the world to visit my children. I can get there on Star Alliance
I like that there are different ways to get SA status. I will have SA Silver via Aegean after a one way to Denver and then a one way from EWR. Awesome!
the Number of partners is the feature of Stat Alliance
My favorite feature is how well all of the different airlines work hard to recognize elites from other members(usually). It makes you feel welcome.
I’m stumped…I’m not that familiar with the Star Alliance features, since I don’t really fly them. That’s exactly why I want to do the MegaDo however, so I can try them out. Onwards!
The flexibility of many choices!
The club access.
The wide selection of member airlines for earning and redemption.
The ability to earn and burn miles on a large number of airlines around the world
I shared tips on spending miles with a stranger last flight last week. We have become friends and found out that we have something in common in term of research/work!
the number of partners spanning the globe with connecting availability from Chicago
It may be simple, but global lounge access makes a huge difference
The breadth of destionations once can visit.
Its extensive route network
I love that Hawaii interisland flights are 5k, even if you have to connect through HNL.
*G Lou ge access.
Their extensive route map!
Award Availability on a wide range of carriers in premium cabins
The ability to earn eqm miles in my favorite alliance on many partner airlines.
Best award redemption from DC area.
My favourite part of the Star Alliance is that there are so many members that you can go almost anywhere in the world with them and I also like that fact that when you here the announcement “a proud member of the Star Alliance” you know that they will meet a certain level and can be trusted.
great award redemptions with awesome airlines
It would have to be lounge access!
The ability to access Lufthansa’s first class product (albeit not until 2 weeks before)
Loung access!
The schedule and frequency of flights.
Priority interline baggage
lounge access and great airlines
using USAir miles for my J class trip to South Africa on SAA
Turkish Airlines status match.
The large number of partners!
Lounge access as a Star Gold!
The largest number of alliance airlines
International redemptions
so many good Partners!
International redemptions
Easier award bookings!
great international network!
The alliance members are mostly top-notch.
Great access to airport clubs. Thanks for the contest!
Broad global coverage.
Priority baggage handling for Gold members!
Large number of partner airlines to earn and redeem miles on.
I like the lounge access which I used to have as a gold member
Partner awards, nuff’ said. That’s why my site gets 3000 searches a day 😉
*Gold for lounge access. Been to 10 airline partner lounges and many are quite amazing for my partner and I
Route network. Perfect for me.
Lounge access
Lots of award options due to many partners. *Gold status
Aeroplan fuel surcharges 🙂
without a doubt LH espically for european travel
The lounges, obviously. I love being able to go to lounges in airports around the world and see the difference levels of hospitality.
The fetching logo.
Great availability that’s easy to search for on United.com
The partners
I like the fact that there are strong partners to get to Europe without fuel surcharges (so far at least)
Ability to codeshare and get pretty much anywhere!
The alliance has such a wide range of carriers located around the world.
Covers the world and you can earn on United but fly Singapore/Lufthansa etc.
expansive partner networks with great first class award opportunities.
Redemption on all carriers!~
The sheer number of options in terms of airlines! So many routes I can fly.
It’s extensive network!
Seems to be easier to book awards tixs.
Some great first class products for international travel.
That status works across all airlines in the alliance. Helps a ton.
I love upgrades! and it should be a lot of Fun!
any one that has premium availability 🙂
Lots of partners!
Love that there are so many choices of Airlines. Makes finding aware space easier.
I love that both US Airways and United are in the same alliance. That’s a great feature.
I am an x B727 pilot , and would love to fly the B787 and take a look at the cockpit to see how much things changed.
My favorite feature is the number of airlines in the Alliance. Talk about choices!!!
Lots of members that we can redeem miles for!
Great partners that give me the opportunity to travel to exotic places. I leave in a few days for FRU…… that’s Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. I’ll fly on a Star Alliance award ticket!
Great airlines.
SQ, TG, OZ and LX !
The huge variety of places I can get to with my miles.
My favorite is that there are so many partners that give basically coverage all over the world. Add to that the fact that United allows stopovers and open jaws on roundtrip award tickets and you’ve got yourself a winner!
Great partners and availability for some awesome mileage redemptions.
Love the flexability
I’m a US Airways junkie so it parlays like this: I love how I can call an agent and never get the same rules spoken to me twice. I’ve flown open jaw, multi-city and stopover on one award ticket crossing three of the Alliance partners – I called it Evolutionary Booking
Lots of top class partners
Lounge Access of course
Lounge Use for Gold is great!
Singapore airline redemptions
I fly mainly OW, but like the greater opportunity to fly to more places around the globe with Star than other alliances.
Five years is a long time. But, pessimisim aside, we are all going to keep finding ways to travel the world through incredible deals. Especially by communicating great finds instantly throughout our unique, if diverse and sometimes fragmented, community. Its always going to be too hard for the average traveller to follow this fastinating pursuit.
The open-jaws and stopovers that you can make with award tickets. SO much better than being restricted to RT’s.
Ability to book flights on many of the partners on the UA website….now if we could book ALL partners and ALL classes of travel, that would be a home run!
Lounge access when you least expect it! Like in Zagreb
I like the minor features more than I do lounge access etc. The time saving features like business/first check in, priority boarding etc. It really pisses me off when airports dont follow this, especially if I am in a Star Alliance hub like Istanbul for instance.
International First Class
My fav is the almost seamless travel between different airlines and they even know your status.
Airline membership is the most complete!
Lounges for gold elites
The star alliance partners
Lounge use with *gold
I almost never fly *A because I’m an AS flyer, but I like that they’re the only alliance with two US carriers (for now…)
All the partners give great flexibility.
The wide variety of airlines and the ability to redeem without YQ using united miles.
I think the Star Gold Lounge perk is the best one – a vast route network is a close runnerup.
Star Gold lounge access is my favorite perk.
The Lufthansa group of airlines is the best part of *A.
Star Gold lounge access when traveling.
Personally, my favourite feature is that premium-tagged-baggage is honoured for all legs of a complicated itinerary and the “interlining” always works.
So, get your bags wrapped-and-tagged in New York by Asiana as First Class, and they arrive **genuinely first** off the conveyor when you eventually get to Sydney. 😉
Great access across the globe in terms of availability and partners
Large airline base to earn and redeem miles
The fact that they have a huge number of members, enough that there is always one willing to give me a status match to *G!
Gotta love all the various partner airlines.. gets you wherever you need to go!
The lounge access for Gold members!
The great diverse number of airlines and the size of their network.
the choices for Europe!
The large number of partners and the many destinations that are available.
many options to choose from as well as access to diff. lounges
Excellent international coverage and great international partners, plus no fuel surcharges by United in most (or all?) cases.
The fact that both United and US Airways, on which I run up a lot of points, participate in Star Alliance.
I love Star Alliance’s coverage in Asia.
It seems that award tickets are much more readily available on Star Alliance than on SkyTeam.
The sheer range of the network (and ANA)
Quality partner airlines and route network
reciprocal benefits on other airlines, lounge access, priority checkin, etc.
-David
variety of partners
My favorite Star Alliance perk is the ability to use lounges worldwide due to my UA status; Star Gold is a powerful thing!
Overall they are flyer friendly
the lounges are a plus! the inconsistencies in retaining status can be an irk though.
Easy bookings!!!
Award availabilty…
Global network…
Economy Plus…
I enjoy having so many choices when it comes to Partners.
Being able to fly on the partner airlines to acquire miles
Ooh. The fact that they gave us a free round the world business class tickets as part of their publicity sweepstake. Hell yeah!
I like the ability to do one-way awards
Being able to use my aeroplan points and not pay AC YQ charges
Award availability on many partners to get me wherever I want to go
It’s great for we Canadians
I like the award availability
Multiple partners and seamless service, inbound to India on United/Lufthansa, outbound on Thai,ANA, all on miles, in business class for 120K roundtrip. Cannot get that on any other alliance.
I love the ability to find an award seat just about any time using one of their many partners.
Easy to book awards through United’s website
lounge access for *G. The TG lounge in Hong Kong was awesome!
Huge network with tons of partners with particularly good coverage across Asia.
Ability to use United miles on other airlines.
Lounge access for star gold flyers.
Seamless travel to a huge number of destinations around the world.
Extra Bag allowance!!
The world-wide coverage is great. Just redeemed a great award ticket with legs on United, TAP Portugal, and Lufthansa – everywhere I needed to go!
Upgrades from any Y or B fare using another carrier’s miles.
Easy *G with Aegean makes status benefits attainable if you have the know-how n
So many flight choices out of NYC!
Redemption on partner airlines to avoid the YQ!
Move Under One Roof – Faster Transfer Times
The fact that they cover more airlines than any other alliance – coordination of schedules at the carriers and some status recognition is worth the effort
Redeeming one way award trips is huge. I wish Delta would do that!
All the different airline options.
All the partners!
Redeeming awards for one way trips 🙂
giveaways. 🙂
so many great partners!
The partners
Getting to Europe on only 100000 miles in business class with good availability.
The extensive route network on high quality airlines like Lufthansa and Swiss, and collecting valuable points as opposed to Avios.
The ability to earn miles to so many destinations.
lounge access
Using Aegean Airlines, a star alliance carrier I will probably never actually fly, to be able to get Star Alliance status and lounge access for very low miles!
Partner awards and the extensive network
international redemption options
economy plus
Two (large) domestic carriers to choose from!
Lounge Access. Esp. LH Senator Lounges and TK lounge in IST
Global network
It’s definitely the ability to earn miles on partner airlines.
Easy upgrades on all partner airlines!
The global choices in the alliance.
Low level Delta awards!
Star Alliance Gold status that gives me lounge access, free checked luggage, and priority security and boarding.
collecting points is very addictive.
The extensive partner network gets me where I need to go.
The round the world fares!
My favorite airlines LH, LX and UA are in Star
Reward redemption availability is always excellent so that’s the best…and that availability is associated with some of the world’s best airlines!
the ridiculous number of airlines
I love having multiple good websites to search for award availability across the alliance.
The sheer number of partners providing excellent coverage.
Partner awards would have to be my favorite feature.
Randy rocks for donating this! Would love to join this event!
Plethora of airline choices…
Global reach of the alliance.
Flying on international carriers with United and US miles!
I love the amount of places I could travel using miles by using Star Alliance partners.
I would love to win this!
My favorite feature is the coverage. So many destinations on solid airlines.
I think SA is great because their route network is so darn good to all the places I want to visit. (Asia/Europe)
Excellent international coverage
Excellent international coverage.
I love all of the destinations that I could get to in the alliance using miles.
Lounge access for star gold
That US Airways sells points so cheap.
Access to the clubs!
I love all the partners. That gives me so many options when it comes to booking award travel.