Jet Airways and American Airlines will discontinue frequent flyer partnership

One of the best things to happen with Jet Airways’ JetPrivilege is their frequent flier partnerships across the board with airlines in almost all parts of the world. This gives access to airlines which are not a part of the Jet Airways direct network and an opportunity to Earn and Burn on these airlines.

One of the great benefits of this alliance was their partnership with American Airlines and Delta in the US. American has been a long standing partner of Jet Airways, however, Delta discontinued ties with them in 2012 and then a few years later restored their ties. This came on the back of Delta and Jet Airways having a more strategic partnership where Jet Airways provides Indian feed through till Europe (London/Amsterdam/Paris) and Delta/ Virgin Atlantic/ KLM/ Air France pick it up from there to bring pax to the US, amongst other destinations.

Now that there is a more wholesome partnership with Delta, including an incoming CEO from Delta and talks about Delta picking up a 24% stake in Jet Airways, it was obvious that American Airlines was going to have to leave this partnership sometime. And this announcement has just come in, that the partnership would be dissolved as of January 1, 2018.

This means,

You can earn AAdvantage Miles for travel on Jet Airways through December 31, 2017
You can burn AAdvantage Miles for redemptions on Jet Airways through December 31, 2017 and travel through December 31, 2018.

Jet Airways is yet to confirm this on their own website, but this should come in a few days anyways. It would also mean that one can no longer earn or use JetPrivilege Miles for American Airlines.

I’m not sure if this is on the lines of Jet Airways making a JV with Delta, but this could be a step in that direction.

Bottomline

For those of you who would not like the JetPrivilege program and credit to AAdvantage instead, your options will be limited going forward now. On the burn front, you have roughly 6 months to redeem on Jet Airways, which has a good product on the Europe routes to India and also to Toronto in Business and First Class. For the others, which program will you credit to next?