The Complete Guide to Earning Oneworld Status

In the world of award travel, the limelight often falls upon credit card points and the allure of premium first-class flights and luxurious hotel redemptions. But there’s another set of travel perks that’s talked about much less, yet could still get you a ton of value for your upcoming vacations: attaining status with an airline alliance.

Status with an airline alliance is extremely powerful. Imagine your usual travel, but it’s enhanced with Oneworld Emerald status. Suddenly, you’re looking at priority boarding and check-in, potential upgrades to premium cabins on international flights and access to some truly amazing airport lounges—spaces that greatly surpass your typical domestic Priority Pass offerings.

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t necessarily have to be a huge spender or traveler to earn these statuses. Instead, it’s more about crediting your flights to the correct program.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll introduce you to the Oneworld program and show you how to earn each status tier. Our ultimate goal is to help you find the best way to earn Oneworld status so you can upgrade your travel for as little effort and money as possible.

Introduction to Oneworld Alliance

Established in 1999, the Oneworld alliance emerged as a pioneering force in the aviation industry. The concept of airline alliances was still new at the time, and Oneworld set out to redefine flying by providing passengers with seamless connectivity through an extensive network of travel destinations.

An airline alliance is only as strong as the partner airlines that make it up. Luckily, Oneworld has a diverse roster of airlines that span all major continents around the globe. Today, the Oneworld alliance consists of the following airlines:

• Alaska Airlines
• American Airlines
• British Airways
• Cathay Pacific
• Fiji Airways
• Finnair
• Iberia
• Japan Airlines
• Malaysia Airlines
• Qantas
• Qatar Airways
• Royal Air Maroc
• Royal Jordanian
• SriLankan Airlines

No matter where you want to go for your next vacation, it’s highly likely that a combination of Oneworld routes can take you there.

Oneworld Status: Tier Levels and Benefits

Now, let’s talk Oneworld status tiers. The Oneworld alliance offers three main status tiers: Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald, each with increasing benefits and privileges.

Oneworld Ruby

Oneworld Ruby is the entry-level tier. While perks at this level are limited, they still provide some advantages that can enhance your travel experience. Here are some typical perks associated with Oneworld Ruby status:

• Priority check-in: Ruby members may have access to dedicated check-in counters or priority lines.
• Priority waitlisting: If your flight is fully booked, Ruby status may grant you higher priority on the waitlist. Additionally, you may be placed on waitlists for premium cabins, but your chances of an upgrade usually are slim.
• Priority boarding: Ruby members enjoy priority boarding over general economy passengers.
• Preferred seating: You may be able to select preferred seats on Oneworld carriers. These can include seats closer to the front of the cabin or seats with extra legroom.
• Extra miles and points: As a Ruby member, you’ll typically earn frequent-flyer miles at a faster rate. This can help you rack up airline miles quicker as you work your way up the status tiers.

Oneworld Sapphire

Oneworld Sapphire is a mid-tier status that offers significantly more privileges and perks. In addition to all the benefits you get with Oneworld Ruby, here are some perks typically associated with Oneworld Sapphire status:

• Business class priority check-in: Sapphire members usually have access to the business-class check-in counters, even if not flying business class.
• Priority boarding: Sapphire members have the privilege of being among the first to board (usually with business-class passengers, even if you aren’t flying business class).
• Access to business-class lounges: One of the most significant benefits of having Sapphire status is that it unlocks entry to most business-class lounges operated by Oneworld airlines. Usually, you’ll get access even if you’re flying in economy class, as long as you’re flying with a Oneworld airline. Pretty much every major international airport houses at least one Oneworld business class lounge. These spaces are wonderful for grabbing food, taking a shower or simply relaxing before your flight.
• Priority baggage handling: If you’re a Sapphire member, Oneworld airlines will attach a “Priority” tag to your checked bags. This gets your bag onto baggage claim carousels faster.
• Additional baggage allowance: Sapphire members may receive an increased baggage allowance compared to lower status levels.

Oneworld Emerald

Oneworld Emerald is the highest status. Emerald provides a comprehensive range of privileges and benefits that really propel your travel experience into luxury. In addition to all the benefits you get with Oneworld Sapphire, here are some perks associated with Oneworld Emerald status:

• First-class priority check-in: Emerald members usually have access to the first-class check-in counters, even if not flying first class.
• Access to first-class lounges: Oneworld Sapphire already gets you into a great selection of business-class and frequent-flyer lounges. Oneworld Emerald takes this a step further by granting access to designated first-class lounges. Some amazing examples of these lounges include Cathay Pacific’s The Pier First Class Lounge at Hong Kong (HKG) and the Qantas First Lounge Sydney (SYD).
• “Fast Track” or “Priority Lane” access: At select airports, Emerald members usually have access to dedicated fast-track security lanes, making the security screening process faster and smoother.
• Exclusive customer service: Many Oneworld airlines provide dedicated customer service lines or priority assistance for Emerald members.

Earning Oneworld Status: Frequent-Flyer Programs

How do you actually go about earning Oneworld status? Well, status with an alliance can be thought of as a “matched status.” In short, achieving status with any Oneworld airline automatically gets you Oneworld status. Here’s what the overall process might look like.

1. Choose a Oneworld airline. This is the airline whose frequent-flyer program you’ll sign up for and use for accumulating miles. Each program has different requirements for how many flight miles, segments or “loyalty points” you need to earn each tier. We’ll discuss this at length in the next section.
2. Accumulate flights and miles within the Oneworld alliance. Next, fly a bunch of Oneworld flights. You don’t necessarily have to fly with your chosen airline. Any Oneworld partner will do. Be sure to add your frequent-flyer number for every flight you take.
3. Meet the status requirements for your airline. Each airline has its own specific requirements for its status tiers. For example, Alaska MVP requires 20,000 qualifying miles and/or 30 qualifying flights on Oneworld partner airlines (at least two flights must be taken on Alaska). Once you achieve Alaska MVP, you’re granted Oneworld Ruby status.
4. Enjoy your benefits. Your Oneworld status is usually valid for the rest of the calendar year and one additional year after that. To maintain your status, you’ll need to continue earning the required number of flights and/or miles during the next calendar year.

Criteria and Assumptions for Evaluating Programs

Different airlines have different requirements for earning Oneworld status. In other words, not every frequent-flyer program is made equal, so it’s crucial that you choose the right airline with which to pursue Oneworld status.

What criteria might you use to evaluate each program? Let’s evaluate each program based on the following:

• Ease of attaining the various statuses. How much spending do you have to reasonably do to get status? Some airlines have spend-based programs, where you’re essentially forced to spend large sums of money with them to move up the ranks. Others are distance-based programs, which (mostly) track how much you fly rather than how much you spend. As we’ll see, distance-based programs tend to be better for pursuing status, but there are exceptions.
• Additional partner airline benefits. Each airline loyalty program may have additional benefits that it gives you at each tier or in between tiers. For instance, Cathay Pacific offers free lounge passes as you work your way through its status levels. Finnair offers long-haul cabin upgrades when you reach its Platinum status tier. Alaska Airlines offers a 50,000 mile bonus when you attain MVP Gold 75K status.

To summarize our intent: We want to find the program that gives us the best value while minimizing the amount we need to spend. Let’s estimate how much you need to spend for each program to earn Oneworld Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald, respectively.

To perform this analysis, we’re going to make the following assumptions:

• You’re based in the United States. While concepts in this analysis apply for all travelers, we’ll assume that your home base is in the United States. This is so that flight prices that we use for this analysis are consistent across airlines.
• We’ll use routes that start in the U.S. and fly to the airline’s main hub(s) whenever applicable. This means that airlines that require you to fly on them to earn status, but operate only a few routes to and from the U.S., may fall lower in our rankings. This also means that we won’t use the reverse route (from the airline’s main hubs to the U.S.), even if it’s cheaper that way.
• We’ll assume seven-day round trips for off-peak or shoulder flying dates. We’ll show the Google Flights calendar for prices from early 2024 as proof of pricing at the time of writing. Realistically, fares can and do change due to many factors.
• Fiji Airways was left out of this analysis. Their Tabua Club member statuses don’t have corresponding Oneworld statuses.

Oneworld Airline Status Programs: Worst to Best

Given the criteria and assumptions in the previous section, we were able to generate the following table that summarizes spending requirements for each Oneworld tier.

*Malaysian Airlines and SriLankan Airlines do not operate direct flights to and from the United States.

So how did we arrive at these rankings and numbers? Let’s now take a look at each Oneworld airline’s frequent-flyer program. We’ll start with the programs you should avoid and slowly work our way toward the best.

13. American Airlines AAdvantage Program

If you’re after Oneworld status, the absolute worst airline to do it with is American Airlines. Why is that? Before we explain, here’s a summary of the various AAdvantage Program tiers and benefits:

From the table, you can see that to move up the ranks, you have to earn what’s known as AAdvantage “Loyalty Points.” Many airlines create these abstract measures to make it difficult to determine exactly how many of their “Loyalty Points” you’ll earn on any given flight. An additional con is that an airline can easily change the earning rates for their own “Loyalty Points” at any time.

An airline creating its own loyalty currency is nothing too egregious on its own. In fact, it’s the norm in today’s airline industry. However, the AAdvantage Program is especially bad because of the sheer number of Loyalty Points required. And the way to earn Loyalty Points? Spend, spend and spend.

Earning Loyalty Points is entirely revenue-based. When flying American Airlines, you’ll earn a specific number of Loyalty Points per dollar spent on the base fare:

• All members: 5X Loyalty Points
• Gold: 7X Loyalty Points
• Platinum: 8X Loyalty Points
• Platinum Pro: 9X Loyalty Points
• Executive Platinum: 11X Loyalty Points

If you wanted to get status by flying American only, you’d have to spend at least $8,000 in flights as a regular AAdvantage member just to hit Oneworld Ruby as a member. Even Executive Platinum members need to spend at least $3,636.36 just to regain Ruby for the next calendar year.

The numbers for AAdvantage Platinum/Oneworld Sapphire get even uglier—$15,000 in flights required. For Platinum Pro/Emerald, $25,000 is required.

You can give yourself a boost by spending on a co-branded American Airlines credit card, such as the Citi®/AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard®. Here, every dollar you spend earns 1 Loyalty Point. However, this requires you to shift your spending mostly to American Airlines credit cards, which comes with a significant opportunity cost. Overall, doing this isn’t the most cost-effective way to earn status.

Finally, the AAdvantage program does have additional milestone rewards in between its status tiers. However, these hardly move the needle. For example, once you earn 15,000 Loyalty Points, you’ll get Group 5 boarding and either one Group 4 boarding upgrade or five Preferred Seat coupons. For the amount of spend it takes to get there ($3,000 for a regular member), these benefits aren’t that exciting.

To summarize, it’ll take at least $8,000 in flights, and likely a lot more, for a new member to obtain Oneworld Ruby through the American Airlines AAdvantage program. There’s also just a lack of tangible benefits overall. Luckily, we have better, more rewarding programs to look forward to within the Oneworld alliance.

12. Cathay Pacific Membership

In Cathay Pacific’s Membership program, your status depends on how many Status Points you earn. Status Points are Cathay’s loyalty currency, and they differ from the Asia Miles currency you can use to redeem for reward flights.

The following table summarizes the requirements and benefits of each of Cathay’s membership tiers:

Status Points are earned on Oneworld carriers based on the specific route and fare class. Cathay Pacific provides a Status Points and Asia Miles calculator to help you determine exactly how many you’ll earn.

Let’s cut right to the chase: Status Points are difficult to earn efficiently. The biggest qualm we have with this program is that there’s an overall lack of sweet spots for earning Status Points.

Earning Oneworld status with Cathay will require you to shell out a good amount of money. For example, on the long-haul route from Los Angeles (LAX) to Hong Kong (HKG), Cathay has the following earning chart for economy-class fares:

There’s a pretty wide range in terms of the number of Status Points you can earn per flight. Because of this, be careful when booking with Cathay. Always check the fare class and expected Status Points earned.

Here’s a flight from Los Angeles to Hong Kong that earns fewer Status Points:

For a different flight on the exact same day, you can earn nearly double the Status Points:

The final Flex flight for $1,659.80 earns 60 Status Points, which is the best option of the six. On a round-trip itinerary, you’d earn 120 Status Points for $3,319.60. Already, that’s a far cry from being an “affordable” way toward Oneworld status. You’d have to do this trip 2.5 times, which would cost $8,299, just to earn Cathay Pacific Silver/Oneworld Ruby status.

To become a Gold/Sapphire member, you’d have to fly five round trips and spend $16,598. For Diamond/Emerald, you’ll need 10 round trips, which would cost $33,196.

These prices are justified given the typical price of Economy (Light) tickets on Cathay for this route:

You may have noticed that our estimated spend on Cathay is actually higher than for the AAdvantage program. So why does Cathay get the edge? One reason is that because Cathay’s program isn’t purely spend-based, you can potentially find better, cheaper routes out there for hunting status. It’s just that none of them are worthy of “sweet-spot” status, unlike some of the other programs on this list.

The other saving grace in Cathay’s program is the milestone awards. Here’s a list of what you can earn at different Status Point thresholds:

• At 200: One business-class lounge pass
• At 450: Two business-class lounge passes
• At 800: Two business-class lounge passes
• At 1,000: Four bookable upgrades
• At 1,400: Two first- or business-class lounge passes
• At 1,600: Four bookable upgrades
• At 1,800: Complimentary companion Gold membership

The Pier, Business and The Pier, First Cathay lounges at Hong Kong International Airport are two of the most renowned airport lounges in the world. It’ll be expensive, but if you can hit 200 Status Points, you’ll get a lounge pass to The Pier, Business lounge to experience it firsthand. Note that subsequent lounge pass rewards are less valuable because Cathay Silver members already get access to The Pier, Business lounge as a benefit.

The bookable upgrades also have the potential to be extremely valuable, but at 1,000 Status Points and above, they’re extremely difficult to attain.

The bottom line with Cathay Pacific is that status is costly—probably even more costly than AAdvantage. However, we still give Cathay a slight edge due to the milestone rewards and the potential for cheaper fares to help you earn status faster. If you’re a big spender and frequent Hong Kong airport, you may be able to justify going for Oneworld status through Cathay for the luxurious milestone rewards along the way. Otherwise, it’s much easier to go with another Oneworld partner.

11. Qantas Frequent Flyer

The Qantas Frequent Flyer program uses a loyalty currency called Status Credits. These differ from the Qantas Points you can use to redeem for reward flights. Here’s an overview of the status tiers in the Qantas program:

Like Cathay and many other airlines in this article, Qantas is an airline that uses a calculator to determine how many Status Points you’ll earn on any given flight. Parameters in this formula include the exact route and fare class booked.

Let’s take a route from Los Angeles (LAX) to Sydney (SYD) as an example. Here, we’ve found an Economy Saver fare class that costs 1,326 Australian dollars (about $846):

Here, we picked Economy Saver because it offers a better earning rate per dollar spent on Status Credits (60) compared to the Economy Sale (45) and Economy Flex (90) options. The return flight on Economy Saver is also similarly priced at 1,371 Australian dollars (about $875).

In total, this itinerary costs 2,697 Australian dollars (about $1,721). Not cheap by any means, but these are typical for Qantas direct flights between Australia and the United States. You’ll earn 120 Status Points with this itinerary. Using these numbers, it’ll cost 2.5 round trips to reach Qantas Silver/Oneworld Ruby, or $4,302.50.

This pricing can be found on select off-peak dates. For instance, here’s a Google Flights search that displays the cheapest Economy Sale round-trip pricing across two months (important: our example uses Economy Saver, which is typically $300 to $400 more expensive each way):

Before we move on to the cost of Sapphire and Emerald tiers, let’s point out that Qantas has milestone rewards that can potentially offer bonus Status Credits. Here are some notable milestones:

• At 500 Status Credits, you can earn an additional 8,000 Qantas Points or 50 Status Credits.
• At 1,000 Status Credits, you can earn an additional 8,000 Qantas Points or 50 Status Credits.

Thus, once you hit 500 Status Credits, you’ll effectively need to earn 650 total Status Credits (instead of 700) to hit Qantas Gold/Oneworld Sapphire. This will require flying 5.5 round-trips or spending $9,465.50.

Once you hit 1,000 Status Credits, you’ll effectively need to earn 1,300 total Status Credits (instead of 1,400) to hit Platinum/Emerald. You’ll need 11 round trips or $18,931.

You could try crediting U.S. domestic flights to Qantas, but the earning rates on those aren’t great. In addition, there’s a requirement that you must take a minimum of four flights on Qantas to qualify for any of the status tiers.

Overall, Qantas’s program has a lack of sweet spots for travelers based in the United States, which is exacerbated by the high fares between North America and Australia. The milestone rewards program is interesting, but not enough to push the Qantas program further up this list. We recommend choosing a different program for pursuing Oneworld status.

10. Qatar Airways Privilege Club

The Qatar Airways Privilege Club uses a loyalty currency called QPoints to determine status. These are different from the Avios currency that you can use to redeem reward tickets. The following table gives an overview of the Privilege Club tiers:

With Qatar Airways, you can earn the QPoints required in any 12-month period. This is a plus, since your 12-month period starts when you join the program, and is not dictated by actual calendar years.

So how do you earn QPoints? Any Qatar Airways or Oneworld alliance partner flight earns you QPoints as determined by their QPoints calculator.

One particularly interesting long-haul flight is between Chicago-O’Hare and the Qatar Airways hub in Doha (DOH). This is because this route earns 76 QPoints on a round-trip Economy Convenience ticket:

Thus, two round trips would earn you Privilege Club Silver/Oneworld Ruby status; four would earn you Gold/Sapphire; and eight would earn you Platinum/Emerald.

How much can you expect to pay for this fare? Here’s a Google search showing prices across two months in economy (with varying fare codes):

In particular, we found an Economy Convenience fare that retails for $1,763:

So earning Silver/Ruby status would cost approximately $3,526; Gold/Sapphire costs $7,052; and Platinum/Emerald costs $14,104.

Let’s admit, these aren’t great numbers. But what about additional benefits? Qatar Airways does offer business-class lounge access at select airports to those with just Silver/Ruby status, but that’s about the only tangible benefit at that tier. There aren’t any additional milestone rewards that Privilege Club members can use.

Ultimately, Qatar Airways Privilege Club is an interesting program if you travel or connect through Doha frequently from the United States. It’s possible to achieve status in relatively few round-trip tickets. However, cost-wise, it’s still a lot more expensive to earn your status through Privilege Club compared to other Oneworld airlines on this list.

9. Finnair Plus

In January 2024, the Finnair Plus program underwent a massive overhaul. The program adopted the Avios currency, which is the same currency used by the British Airways Executive Club, Iberia Plus, Aer Lingus AerClub and Qatar Airways Privilege Club programs.

At the same time, Finnair Plus shifted to a spend-based rewards program, with some nuances. Here’s a chart summarizing the new status tiers for Finnair Plus:

Here’s an overview of each of the Finnair membership tiers:

Earning Tier points works differently on Finnair versus its Oneworld partners. On Finnair, Tier points are entirely spend-based. Like with the AAdvantage program, you’ll earn a specific number of Tier points per dollar spent on the base fare:

• All members: 6X Tier points
• Silver: 7X Tier points
• Gold: 8X Tier points
• Platinum: 9X Tier points
• Platinum Lumo: 10X Tier points

This means that general members need to spend at least $2,500 on Finnair flights to hit Ruby, $7,500 for Sapphire and $13,333.33 for Emerald. That’s definitely better than the AAdvantage program, but it’s still not ideal.

Remember, we don’t like spend-based models. However, Tier points are calculated differently when flying with Finnair’s partners—those flights earn based on travel class and miles flown.

For example, here’s the Finnair chart for flights on Alaska Airlines:

Using distance-based charts for earning Tier points is a lot more promising. At the same time, Finnair (and most airlines, to be fair) isn’t generous when it comes to giving you all the miles you’re entitled to. It all comes down to booking classes.

Alaska fares Y, B and H are pretty tough to come by (or very expensive), and you’ll find that 99% of Main class fares have codes K, M, S, Q or O. These will earn you just 50% of the total distance flown. In that case, you might as well just credit the flight to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, which earns 100% of the total distance flown on all of these fares.

The nice thing about Finnair is that its milestone awards can actually be quite rewarding if you can make use of the Finnair upgrades, and travel through Helsinki Airport (HEL).

Here’s a look at some notable milestones:

• 12,000 Tier points: 3,000 bonus Avios
• 20,000 Tier points: two lounge passes for Finnair lounges in Helsinki
• 55,000 Tier points: two upgrade benefits
• 95,000 Tier points: four upgrade benefits

Overall, there are many interesting aspects of Finnair Plus’s new program. However, it’s still rather difficult to achieve statuses because there aren’t too many sweet spots in Finnair’s hybrid “spend-and-distance-based” model. Unless you fly Finnair frequently and can take advantage of the bonus milestone awards, you’ll probably find better value in another program.

8. SriLankan Airlines FlySmiLes

The SriLankan Airlines FlySmiLes program is the first of four mileage-based programs that we’ll examine. Unlike each of the previous programs, which used special loyalty points defined by their respective airlines, status tiers in the FlySmiLes program are (mostly) based on the number of actual miles you fly.

Let’s start off as usual by looking at the each tier of the FlySmiLes program:

Immediately, a couple of things should jump out at you. First, as we mentioned, Tier miles are based on actual miles flown, making this potentially a much easier and more transparent way to know how many miles you’ll earn on any flight. Additionally, once you hit a tier, the requirements to renew the tier during the next calendar year are slightly more relaxed. Sounds pretty good so far.

However, there’s an issue. For the FlySmiLes Gold/Oneworld Sapphire and Platinum/Emerald tiers, half of your miles (or sectors) must come from flights operated by SriLankan Airlines. This is a pretty big problem because SriLankan Airlines doesn’t operate any direct flights to or from the United States.

For instance, when we search for flights from New York (JFK) to one of SriLankan Airlines’s hubs in Colombo, Sri Lanka (CMB), we’re able to find flights with a layover only. In this case, it’s in Paris (CDG).

The first leg from New York to Paris is on SriLankan Airlines (UL2002) operated by American Airlines. Technically, this isn’t a SriLankan Airlines flight, but a codeshare.

From the SriLankan Airlines chart for American Airlines flights, notice that you’ll earn only a fraction of the miles on such flights unless you pay for higher fare classes. In the above case, if you choose the Eco Value option, you’ll earn 25% of the Tier miles for the segment from New York to Paris.

Even though there are no direct flights out of the United States, let’s run our usual exercise on what is perhaps the next best route: London-Heathrow (LHR) to Colombo (CMB). Choosing the Eco Semiflex option is the most cost efficient when it comes to earning Tier miles.

Return flights are as follows (again, we’re choosing a Semiflex fare).

In total, this round-trip itinerary costs about $1,330.79. It would take just 1.5 round-trips to achieve Classic/Ruby status, which will cost you $1,996.18. For Gold/Sapphire, it would take three round trips, or $3,992.37. For Platinum/Emerald, you’d need to fly 4.5 round trips and spend $5,988.56.

We justify the $1,330.79 round-trip cost with the following Google Flights search, which lists Economy Promo Flex fares on SriLankan (Economy Semiflex fares, which we used in this example, are often $100 to $300 more expensive each way).

These are definitely the best numbers we’ve seen yet. But will you be flying between London and Colombo often? Probably not.

Overall, the FlySmiLes program has extremely low Tier miles requirements for earning status—the lowest in the Oneworld alliance. This makes achieving status cheap on the surface. However, the lack of direct flights to and from the U.S. coupled with the high requirements for earning Tier miles on SriLankan Airlines makes this program hard to use, and we have no choice but to push this program down the list considerably.

Unless you find yourself flying SriLankan Airlines frequently, this is probably a program to avoid despite the attractive distance-based requirements.

7. Malaysia Airlines Enrich

In the Malaysia Airlines Enrich program, you must earn Elite Points to climb the status tiers. The following chart summarizes the requirements and key benefits of each tier:

Malaysia Airlines is perhaps the simplest program among Oneworld carriers, with just a single chart outlining the number of points you’ll earn.

Immediately from this chart, one thing is pretty clear—you’ll find the best earning rates on economy flights. The business class and business suite categories do earn more Elite Points, but not enough to justify the increased costs.

Unfortunately, Malaysia Airlines doesn’t operate direct flights from its hub at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (KUL), to the United States. Instead, we’ll use one of its other flagship routes from London-Heathrow (LHR) to Kuala Lumpur as our example here. Since fares on this route aren’t too expensive, this highlights a decent sweet spot in the Enrich program.

Here, we’ve found a round-trip flight in economy for 790.11 British pounds sterling (about $960).

This fare is on the cheaper end, but there are still plenty of dates where you can find similar pricing on relatively off-peak dates.

Despite the Economy Lite fare, our trip would still earn eight Elite Points each way, so 16 Elite Points round trip. To qualify for Enrich Silver/Oneworld Ruby, you’d need to fly just two round trips on this itinerary, which would cost $1,920; for Enrich Gold/Oneworld Sapphire, four round-trips, or $3,840; for Enrich Platinum/Oneworld Emerald, 6.5 round-trips, or $6,240.

This is an economical way to earn Oneworld status, especially since the threshold for Platinum/Emerald is not too far off from Gold/Sapphire. However, while this is the cheapest path to Emerald we’ve found so far, it’s on a route that U.S. travelers probably can’t utilize often. In other words, it’s plagued with the same issues as the SriLankan Airlines FlySmiLes program. For that reason, we’ve ranked the Enrich program lower than other programs that may cost more.

Still, the Enrich program sets the bar for how much we should expect to have to pay to earn Oneworld status among “good” programs.

6. Japan Airlines Mileage Bank

Next up is Japan Airlines (JAL) Mileage Bank, where we’re introduced to another loyalty currency: FLY ON points. These are different from the JAL Miles that you can use to redeem for flights.

Here’s an overview of each of the Japan Mileage Bank (JMB) membership tiers.

Since FLY ON points are the name of the game, let’s discuss how they’re earned. FLY ON points are calculated by a formula that takes into account flight mileage, conversion rates and other bonuses.

The conversion rates are determined as follows:

• Domestic flights within Japan: 2X
• JAL flights connecting Japan with Asia, Oceania or Vladivostok, Russia: 1.5X
• All other international flights: 1X

At first glance, this is a pretty good system. The formula’s main factor is flight mileage, which means we’re working with another mileage-based earning system here rather than a spend-based system like AAdvantage.

However, the thresholds for the first two tiers are a little high at 30,000 and 50,000 FLY ON points, respectively. While that’s not terrible, that’s higher than other mileage-based programs on our list.

Perhaps more importantly, U.S.-based travelers who don’t frequent Japan will find it near-impossible to achieve status with JAL. This is because at each tier, half of the FLY ON points you earn must come from JAL flights.

We’ve already seen other Oneworld airlines (notably SriLankan) having a similar requirement of minimum segments on their airline. Needing to earn half of your FLY ON miles on JAL is a tough requirement that severely limits the number of FLY ON points you can gain from flying other Oneworld partners.

In other words, this program is only worth considering if you fly JAL frequently. U.S. travelers will have to earn the brunt of the FLY ON points via JAL flights to and from Japan. Here lies another issue: although JAL’s program is mileage-based, flights between Japan and the U.S. still routinely cost more than $1,000 in economy, as shown in the Google Flights search below.

Here’s one from New York (JFK) to Tokyo-Haneda (HND) for $1,145 round trip.

All this to earn 5,530 FLY ON points each way, or 11,060 FLY ON points round trip.

If you crunch the numbers, flying this round-trip ticket three times would earn you JAL Crystal/Oneworld Ruby, and that’d cost around $3,435. Far from good, but it’s tough to do better with JAL’s requirements.

For those curious about the cost for JAL Sapphire/Oneworld Sapphire, it would take five round trips, which costs $5,725. For JAL Premier/Oneworld Emerald, eight round-trips or $9,160.

These numbers aren’t good, but they also aren’t terrible. Can we do better? The obvious way to try to find sweet spots is to go for routes where you can earn 2X and 1.5X FLY ON points. However, those are all short-haul flights from Japan only, which U.S. travelers may find hard to take advantage of.

The additional benefits you receive with JAL statuses does sweeten the deal a little bit, but not enough to make a compelling case. Notably, if you’re able to achieve JAL Crystal and join the JAL Global Club, you’ll receive elevated benefits compared to those presented in the table (for simplicity, we assumed you weren’t in the Global Club for this analysis).

To conclude, JAL has an attractive mileage-based formula for earning their loyalty points, which places it ahead of a couple programs. However, high fares and strict requirements for flying on JAL make it difficult for the average U.S. traveler to really capitalize on this program. As a result, we can’t rank JAL any higher than sixth.

5. British Airways Executive Club

With the British Airways Executive Club, you need to earn Tier Points to gain status. Tier Points are different from the Avios currency you can use to redeem for reward flights.

The following table contains an overview of each of the Executive Club status tiers.

To determine how many Tier Points you’ll earn on a particular flight, you can use the flight calculator provided by British Airways. As you might expect, the number of Tier Points you earn depends on the route and fare class.

The following table shows the Avios and Tier Points earned for a Blue member flying on the British Airways flagship route from London (LHR) to New York (JFK):

Note that the higher your Executive Club tier, the more Avios you’ll earn. However, the number of Tier Points earned remains the same for all tiers.

For this particular route, the most cost-efficient path to status probably lies in the premium economy lowest (E, T) fares. In general, we find that premium economy fares are usually around 1.5X the cost of economy, but earn well over 1.5X the number of Tier Points, making it a pretty decent sweet spot.

For instance, the following route from New York (JFK) to London-Heathrow (LHR) cost $1,384.10.

This itinerary alone would earn you 180 Tier Points. This means that two round-trip flights would put you well above the threshold for Bronze; 3.5 round trips for Silver; and 8.5 round trips for Gold. In terms of money spent, this translates to around $2,768.20 for Ruby, $4,844.35 for Sapphire and $11,764.85 for Emerald.

These prices are extremely consistent for premium economy during relatively off-peak travel dates.

Provided you take this route semi-regularly, these are big improvements over programs like AAdvantage and Finnair Plus. Of course, this was just one example on one particular route (it’s also worth noting that round trips originating from London, i.e. LHR-NYC, are much cheaper). If the routes that you typically fly don’t earn Tier Points as efficiently, then this may not work out for you.

Overall, it comes down to sweet spots. If the routes you fly have exceptional rates on earning Tier Points with British Airways, it can be a pretty good option for earning Oneworld status.

4. Royal Air Maroc (RAM) Safar Flyer

The Royal Air Maroc (RAM) Safar Flyer program might not be at the top of their mind for travelers based in the United States. However, as we’ll see, there’s quite some potential in this little-known program.

That’s because Safar Flyer is another one of just four programs in the Oneworld alliance that have distance-based qualification requirements instead of loyalty points.

Here’s a chart outlining the different status tiers in the Safar Flyer program.

From this chart, we can see that the requirements for miles flown are actually reasonable. Like with the FlySmiLes program, it’s the secondary requirement that may be a little tougher for U.S. travelers—at each tier, half the status miles must be flown on Royal Air Maroc.

You could achieve this with routes from the U.S. to one of Royal Air Maroc’s hubs at Casablanca (CMN) or Marrakesh, Morocco (RAK).

Let’s take a route from New York (JFK) to Casablanca, which costs $789.60.

This is a pretty typical price for this route, according to Google Flights.

On all economy fare classes (besides award tickets), flights on RAM earn 100% of the miles flown. We can verify this with Royal Air Maroc’s status miles calculator that we’ll earn 3,609 miles one way.

To hit Safar Flyer Silver/Oneworld Ruby, you’ll need to fly this round-trip itinerary three times. That’ll cost approximately $2,368.80. For Gold/Sapphire, you’ll need five round trips, or $3,948.00. For Platinum/Emerald, you’ll need 10.5 round-trips, or $8,290.80.

These numbers are pretty good, though still a little bit on the expensive side. However, since Royal Air Maroc’s status tiers are distance-based, could you also credit domestic flights within the United States to the program? The answer is yes, but you probably won’t get as many miles as you’d expect. In fact, you’ll typically earn just 25% to 75% of the actual miles flown.

Let’s use San Francisco (SFO) to New York (JFK) as an example. This flight is about 2,500 miles long, so in a miles-based program, you’d expect to earn 2,500 miles, right? Not quite. Notice how RAM uses separate charts to determine how many status miles you’ll get on partner flights.

For example, on Alaska Airlines, economy fare class O earns just 50% of the miles flown, or 1,293 miles one way:

The O fare class is commonly seen on this route for economy travel on slightly peak dates (i.e. Thursdays and Fridays). Alaska typically retails this seat for about $184.

So, on Safar Flyer, you’d earn 1,293 status miles for this flight, which is about 6% of the way towards Ruby (20,000 required). Of course, you can’t fly domestic routes within the U.S. only to earn status with Safar Flyer because you must earn half your miles flying Royal Air Maroc. But assuming you can hit that requirement, this example illustrates how you can also credit your other Oneworld flights to Safar Flyer to supplement your path toward status.

Overall, RAM earns a pretty high spot on our list because it’s a distance-based program. This lends itself to sweet spots where you can credit cheap but medium-to-long-haul flights to the program and earn yourself a ton of Status miles. However, since Safar Flyer mandates that you must fly Royal Air Maroc, this gives U.S. travelers less flexibility with the program. In conclusion, we can’t rank Safar Flyer any higher than fourth.

3. Royal Jordanian Royal Club

Another surprise lies in the Royal Jordanian Royal Club frequent-flyer program. As another one of just four Oneworld airlines that use tier miles instead of loyalty points, there’s a lot of potential for great value.

The following table lists the status tiers in the Royal Club.

Note that there’s no listed requirement of how many miles or segments have to be on Royal Jordanian flights. This gives travelers a lot more flexibility compared to a similar miles-based program like Royal Air Maroc Safar Flyer.

Because there’s no requirement to fly Royal Jordanian, let’s start our analysis by considering the following. What if we just credited all of our domestic U.S. flights on American Airlines to the Royal Club program? In the Safar Flyer analysis, we used an economy ticket on Alaska from San Francisco (SFO) to New York (JFK), which retailed for $184. The fare class was O, which actually earns only about 25% of the distance flown with Royal Club, or 646 miles, according to their calculator:

This is pretty bad for this particular route and fare class. Notice that if you’re able to find flights in classes K, M, L or better, you’ll earn much more miles for the route.

In conclusion, this strategy works about the same for Royal Club as it does for Safar Flyer—it’s a good way to supplement your way towards status, but the brunt of earning must still come from Royal Jordanian flights. So let’s talk about that now.

Royal Jordanian flies directly to and from two U.S. cities: Chicago and New York. From New York to Amman, Jordan (AMM), you’re looking at a handsome number of tier miles in just about every fare class.

Flight prices are pretty reasonable on this route in off-peak travel dates.

Searching directly with Royal Jordanian, we’ve found a flight from New York to Amman for the following price.

And for the way back:

Although technically you’ll earn tier miles more efficiently on Economy Plus, let’s stick with Economy Saver for this example. In total, this round-trip ticket costs $870.40 and will earn you 8,550 tier miles.

Thus, for Royal Club Silver JAY/Oneworld Ruby, you’ll need to fly this route twice, which will cost you $1,740.80 out of pocket. For Gold SPARROW/Sapphire, you’ll need five round trips, or $4,352. Finally, for Platinum HAWK/Emerald, you’ll need eight round trips, or $6,963.20.

These numbers definitely give the Royal Club an edge over Safar Flyer, at least for our examples. At the same time, as we saw with the Alaska San Francisco to New York example, that worked out better for Safar Flyer.

At the end of the day, we rank these two programs similar to each other, and only small technicalities separate the two. You’ll find that certain routes work better with Royal Club, and other routes that work better with Safar Flyer. Both are great programs that tend to beat programs that use loyalty points. If you’re a U.S. traveler that can take advantage of direct routes that these two programs offer, strongly consider them.

2. Iberia Plus

Iberia Plus is an interesting program that uses its own loyalty currency called Elite Points. Here’s an overview of each of the Iberia Plus membership tiers.

By now, we’ve probably conditioned you to think that loyalty programs = bad. However, Iberia is one exception because it publishes earning tables that reveal a ton of sweet spots for earning Elite Points quickly.

To illustrate, let’s take a look at this portion of their Elite Points chart, specifically the rate for premium economy flights between Spain and North America.

This is the textbook definition of a sweet spot—425 Elite Points on this one-way route in premium economy. When searching for flights on Iberia, we can verify that we earn 850 Elite Points on a premium economy ticket from, say, New York (JFK) to Madrid (MAD) for $1,258.70.

This means that to earn Plata/Oneworld Ruby, you only need 1.5 round-trip flights in this itinerary, or $1,888.05. For Oro/Oneworld Sapphire, that’s three round trips, or $3,776.10, and for Platino/Oneworld Emerald, that’s 7.5 round trips, or $9,440.25.

That’s a pretty quick and efficient route to getting Oneworld status, particularly Ruby and Sapphire. In fact, you could potentially do even better as prices fluctuate during off-peak travel seasons.

If you take transatlantic flights even semi-regularly, do not ignore this often overlooked program in Iberia.

Additionally, Iberia publishes a separate chart for its Oneworld partners.

Here, there’s potential for sweet spots as well. We’re eyeing the 350 Elite Points for Full Economy for a flight between 3,001 and 6,000 miles.

However, “Full Economy” here is pretty vague, and Iberia doesn’t clarify exactly which fare classes qualify here. Because of this, it’s much safer for you to earn the majority of your Elite Points via Iberia flights, where fare classes and the number of Elite Points you’ll earn is clearly laid out at time of booking.

Of course, you can still credit other Oneworld flights to your Iberia Plus membership, but do this with the expectation of “topping off” your Elite Points rather than having it be the bulk of your earning.

In summary, Iberia has left some sweet spots in its program that make it quite easy for even casual travelers to get the Oneworld Ruby and Sapphire status tiers. It does require that you make use of this common transatlantic route in premium economy, but among all Oneworld carriers, this definitely is one of the optimal ways to achieve status.

1. Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan

The best program for earning Oneworld status for those based in the U.S. is, hands down, the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan. In fact, the numbers show that it’s not even close.

As the fourth and final distance-based rewards program, Mileage Plan members earn miles based on the miles flown and fare class when booking flights with Alaska or its partner airlines.

Here’s an overview of each of Alaska’s status tiers.

Everything in this chart is a gold mine waiting to be uncovered. Firstly, as we already mentioned, the fact that Alaska calculates eligible miles based on actual distance flown opens the door to many sweet spots. But also, many of the additional benefits you get at the MVP Gold/Sapphire and MVP Gold 75K/Emerald are so much better than those of Alaska’s Oneworld counterparts.

Let’s start with our usual cost analysis of attaining status. We’ll look at the same domestic U.S. route that we’ve been using to evaluate the other distance-based programs—Alaska’s route from San Francisco (SFO) to New York (JFK). This route is 2,586 miles one way. On any main cabin fare, you’ll earn at least 100% of these as eligible miles.

Note that prior to July 19, 2023, Saver (X) fares earned 100% of the miles flown (which made Mileage Plan even more overpowered). Even with the devaluation of Saver fares to earn just 30% of the miles flown, Alaska is still the superior option for pursuing status. It just unfortunately means you’ll now have to pay a bit more to buy main cabin fares for the most optimal strategy.

Here are the typical rates for Saver fares on this route in Alaska (note that main cabin fares are usually $30 to $50 more expensive each way).

For San Francisco to New York, we found a round-trip itinerary in the main cabin (G) for $257.81.

This round-trip flight would earn 5,156 elite qualifying miles. That means you’ll need only four round trips to hit Alaska MVP/Oneworld Ruby, which would cost you $1,031.24. For MVP Gold/Sapphire, it’s eight round-trips, or $2,062.48. For MVP Gold 75K/Emerald, it’s 15 round-trips, or $3,867.15.

Compare these numbers with any of the others (don’t worry, we provide a table in the next section) and you’ll see that Alaska comes out miles ahead of the pack.

But that’s not all. Starting from the MVP Gold/Sapphire tier, you actually get some pretty practical benefits. In particular, you get four first-class upgrades, which provide great value on a medium-haul flight like San Francisco to New York. Alaska’s first-class cabin isn’t anything luxurious (you won’t get lie-flat seats), but you do get a complimentary meal. It’s still a pretty significant upgrade over main cabin seats.

Some even juicier benefits come with achieving MVP Gold 75K/Emerald status. First off, you get an international upgrade certificate on American Airlines to their Flagship Business Class, which by itself is already extremely valuable.

However, perhaps even better is the fact that you’ll get 50,000 Alaska miles, no questions asked. The value you can get from these miles could be astronomical. For instance, you could fly from the United States to South America on LATAM business class which costs just 45,000 miles.

In conclusion, the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan is by far the most attractive option for acquiring Oneworld status and more. The mile thresholds are relatively low, and if you can take advantage of a medium-haul flight in the U.S. (think coast to coast or to and from Hawaii), you could rack up elite qualifying miles quickly. The additional Alaska Airlines benefits you receive at the higher tiers only sweetens the deal.

Differences and Nuances in Benefits

Before we conclude this analysis, we want to add that there are differences and nuances in the Oneworld benefits you’ll receive depending on which airline loyalty program you choose for earning status. These differences revolve primarily around access to Oneworld lounges in airports worldwide and are listed in detail on Oneworld’s website. We’ll touch on some of the main ones in this section.
American Airlines AAdvantage Members

Just when you thought American Airlines couldn’t do any worse in this article, there are further restrictions for AAdvantage members when accessing Oneworld lounges:

• No access to Oneworld partner lounges when traveling on North American flights, regardless of tier status or class of travel
• No access to Oneworld partner lounges when traveling solely on domestic U.S. flights, regardless of tier status or class of travel, with some exceptions

The restrictions above apply to Oneworld partner lounges only. AAdvantage members with the proper status can still access Admirals Club lounges.

SriLankan FlySmiLes Members

Certain airports restrict lounge access to SriLankan FlySmiLes members traveling in economy class to and from Colombo (CMB), even if the member has Oneworld Sapphire or Emerald status. These airports are:

• Male, Maldives (MLE)
• Gan, Maldives (GAN)
• Trivandrum, India (TRV)
• Tiruchirappalli, India (TRZ)
• Chennai, India (MAA)
• Madurai, India (IXM)
• Bangalore, India (BLR)
• Cochin, India (COK)
• Coimbatore, India (CJB)
• Hyderabad, India (HYD)

Lounge access is granted to customers with business- or first-class tickets.

Oneworld Lounges with Special Access Rules

A few lounges in the Oneworld network are exempt from the usual rules. This often means that you’ll have to have direct status with the operator of the lounge to gain access (aka Oneworld status with a partner airline is insufficient).

The following lounges have special access rules:

• The Chelsea Lounge at JFK Terminal 8. You get access if you’re traveling in American Airlines Flagship First International, First Transcontinental or Business Plus on international routes, or U.S. transcontinental routes. AAdvantage status is not enough to gain access. You must have a ticket in one of the cabins listed above.
• The Concorde Room at Terminal 5 London Heathrow. You get access if you’re flying on a scheduled British Airways flight in first class, are a Premier card holder or have Gold Guest List status. Executive Club status is not enough to gain access.
• The Al Safwa First and Al Mourjan Business lounges in Doha. Oneworld members holding first- or business-class tickets on Qatar Airways or other Oneworld airlines can use the lounges. An economy-class ticket will not grant you access even if you have Oneworld Emerald status.

This is just a preliminary list as mentioned on the Oneworld website. Individual lounge access is always subject to the discretion of the lounge and airline.

Final Thoughts

We’ve covered immense ground in this article, diving deep into Oneworld status, benefits and airline loyalty programs. From Oneworld Ruby to Sapphire to Emerald, you got a taste of all the luxurious travel benefits that could be yours.

Earning Oneworld status can be tricky. There are many paths to Rome, and they aren’t all created equal. Your journey to your Oneworld benefits depends heavily on which airline you choose to pursue it with.

In this article, we laid out all the terms and numbers in an attempt to compare all the Oneworld programs. In the end, programs like Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan emerged as clear winners while programs like American Airlines AAdvantage Plan should be best avoided.

While our analysis hints clearly at a select few options, the choice is ultimately up to you. If you’re unsure of your travel habits but are based in the U.S., you can’t go wrong with Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan. Once you’re set up, get out and fly a bunch of Oneworld airlines and work your way up toward those sweet travel benefits.