Plans Finalized For LATAM’s Exit From OneWorld Alliance
LATAM’s exit from OneWorld has been finalized. We knew this was coming and discussed it when Delta bought 20% of LATAM. As the biggest carrier in South America, this leaves OneWorld without a carrier inside the continent. Now, OneWorld flights would only reach port cities and lack connections, according to LATAM’S original exit announcement. Here’s what we know and don’t know from the exit plans announced by OneWorld.
What We Know
OneWorld Alliance announced in a press release that LATAM’s exit from OneWorld is effective on May 1, 2020. Up until April 30, you can still book award travel on LATAM through OneWorld partners. As long as it’s ticketed, the flight will be valid–even past May 1, 2020. We also know that LATAM plans to extend partnerships with some of the OneWorld partners on a case-by-case basis. Additionally, with Royal Air Maroc joining OneWorld April 1, 2020, we know that there will be no benefits or code shares during this 1 month of overlap.
What We Don’t Know
Obviously, we don’t know how those ongoing partnerships will work. Which airlines will be involved? What are the terms? Will award charts change for these partnerships? Can we earn frequent flyer miles? What about MQMs and things like that for mileage runs/elite status activity? Will LATAM flights become bookable online? Not being able to book them online via American or British was a headache.
Final Thoughts
I’m nervous about this shift with LATAM, to be blunt. Living in Brazil, I rely on LATAM a lot. As a OneWorld member, it was easy to know how many points I’d need for award flights on LATAM using British Airways Avios or American Airlines AAdvantage miles. Now that I’ll need to use Air France or Delta, with their dynamic awards, I have no idea what to expect. We don’t know what partnerships will be extended. It’s unclear how they’ll work or when to expect their implementation. Delta and LATAM Twitter teams are just replying “we don’t have dates yet” for award travel questions. I’ll be following this closely. Might be time to hurry up some future bookings before April 30.
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In order to use Alaska miles on LATAM, is the best way to search just clicking one day at a time on the BA site?
No. Unfortunately, there’s no quality way to book LATAM flights online. https://milestomemories.boardingarea.com/book-central-south-american-airlines-awards-online/ If you want LATAM flights, you’ll have to call. I always find a plan A, B, and C from LATAM cash fares on their site before calling to look for award fares.
Thanks for that link. So it’s not just the short flights that might not show up, it’s also probably true for the longer flights, right? I was hoping for one of the jfk LATAM flights. Was just hoping for some last second inventory. I also was going to look at Korean miles on delta flights to South America. From your experience are these pretty unlikely to find in biz class? I want to burn both some Alaska & Korean miles. Not sure what other deals to pursue because it doesn’t seem like the right time to fly to Asia.
Right, it’s everything in LATAM inventory that’s hard to find. When are you looking for? The routes to NYC, Boston, and Miami/FLL are the most popular routes to the US for Brazilians, so those are often hard to find award space on, just to be up front. Not impossible, but you have to be flexible.
Looking for various dates in March. I’m in Pennsylvania, so to use Alaska miles on LATAM, with their one partner rule, Miami wouldn’t be worth it even if it existed. I’ve heard that biz class availability is hard to/from South America with all carriers, but thought I might get lucky with unsold seats by being so last second
OK so JFK is your most convenient. March is after the Carnaval travel season, so you might find something. Sounds like time for a call to (800) 307-6912 for partner bookings.
How accurate is a topic “Plans Finalized” if you only know the end date of the Oneworld membership? Which was announced weeks ago. If you look your “What we do not know”, nothing has been finalized except the end date of the OW membership. Looks like you write something to just write something.
Their exit is definitely finalized. We know everything about the end of their membership in oneworld. The things we don’t know are regarding LATAM itself and its operations outside of oneworld. Their end date, end of codeshares, and end of benefits sharing etc. are known and finalized. While there are things we don’t know, none of those are “LATAM-oneworld” relationship issues. I think that part is definitely finalized. Yes, I could say “finalized” and just mention what nails are in the coffin. However, it seems more helpful to talk about unresolved things as well to make sure people know what’s up in the air, even if those are not necessarily part of the official story.
Delta surely does have dynamic pricing with partners.
As for Latam probably Qatans and Qatar will keep interline agreements.
I have doubts about Qatar because their flight already touches São Paulo but then continues on to Buenos Aires, so I am not hopeful they’ll see a big need for connections into the continent. Qantas serves the Sydney-Santiago route over the Pacific and LATAM runs that route also. LATAM could likely see that as a chance to bump themselves up and increase market share on that route by not letting their passengers connect onto Qantas on that route. Hard to predict.
While Delta and Air France have dynamic pricing for their own metal they normally don’t have dynamic pricing for partners, so no need to worry about that.
All my flights on Kenya Airways and Middle East booked with AF or Delta have had dynamic pricing.