There are 3 major airline alliances – Star Alliance, SkyTeam, and Oneworld. The airlines that fall within an airline alliance typically work closely, even at times sharing resources and offering the ability to book cash or award flights with one another.

As a quick review, most of the major banks offer the opportunity to earn transferable points and miles that can be moved from the bank to your choice of airline or hotel. Airline alliances essentially increase your access to additional airlines!

For example, pretend you want to fly to Fiji. Fiji Airways operates direct flights from the West Coast of the USA to Fiji, which could be a great option for you. However, you might be disappointed to find that none of the major banks offer the ability to move transferable points and miles to Fiji Airways. But don’t despair – Fiji Airways is in the Oneworld alliance!

Depending on what bank you have transferable points in, you may be able to move those points to a Oneworld partner and then book your Fiji Airways flight using the partner portal. Of course, you will have to run a search before you begin moving points. Follow along below as I run a quick search for this exact case!

For those still with me, below is a current (October 2025) list of the 3 airline alliances and the partner airlines belonging to each. My hope is not that you memorize this, but that you will remember that airline alliances exist and that you can leverage them to access even more routes and destinations than you may initially think!