Alitalia (AZ) is Italy’s flag carrier, with hubs in Rome (FCO) and Milan (MXP & LIN). It belongs to the SkyTeam alliance, whose members include familiar airlines such as Delta Air Lines, China Eastern, China Southern, China Airlines, XiamenAir, Korean Air, and more. Since its only destination in Greater China is Beijing (launched on July 16), and its US destinations are limited to JFK, Miami (MIA), and Boston (BOS) (with Chicago (ORD) and Los Angeles (LAX) operating only seasonally), its network is still focused mainly within Europe, so most people are not very familiar with it. Most people know it because of its occasional status match offers, which can get you SkyTeam Elite Plus status (roughly equivalent to Star Alliance Gold or oneworld Sapphire). Very few people talk about its frequent flyer program. Since it is part of SkyTeam and also partners with the Etihad group of airlines, its miles can actually be used for quite a few award tickets. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights of this program.
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Program overview
Alitalia’s mileage program is called MilleMiglia. For economy class, the cheapest redemption level is the Standard award, while the more expensive options are Elite Award and Flexible Award. For business class, the cheaper option is the standard award, while the more expensive one is called SuperFlex Award. In practice, we usually aim for the Standard award, just like most people redeem UA miles for saver awards.
Program signup page: https://www.alitalia.com/en_us/special-pages/subscribe_mm_program.html
Ways to earn miles
- Flying. On SkyTeam airlines, mileage earning is often less than 100%, so you usually will not earn that many miles from flying alone.
- In North America, AZ miles have an important transfer partner: AMEX Membership Rewards, with a 1000:1000 transfer ratio. Based on testing, transfers post instantly. MR points mainly come from welcome bonuses or everyday spending on the Everyday Preferred credit card.
- SPG points: 20,000 SPG points = 25,000 AZ miles. Like transfers to most other airline programs, this is not instant. For people who do not travel for business, SPG points mainly come from spending on the AMEX SPG credit card.
- Buying miles from the official website: from May 18 to June 18, there is a promotion on purchased miles. Here is the link to buy miles, with up to a 50% bonus:
Based on the 50% bonus, the cost per mile comes out to 1.67 euro cents, or about 1.874 US cents. Note that when redeeming an award ticket, at most 75% of the miles used can be purchased miles; at least the remaining 25% must come from flying, points transfers, or other sources.
Redemption rules:
- Redeeming on Alitalia flights: one-way awards are allowed, and a one-way costs 60% of a round trip. Each one-way can have up to two connections. Neither one-way nor round-trip awards allow stopovers, but open-jaws within the same zone are permitted. On the award chart, North America is AZ Zone 5 and China is AZ Zone 7: this is the award chart for economy and premium economy on Alitalia flights,
and this is the award chart for business class on Alitalia flights. Changing only the date, or changing the cabin at the airport, is free. Changing the passenger name, itinerary, airline, or changing cabin over the phone costs either 55 euros or 5000 miles.
- Redeeming SkyTeam partner flights: round-trip booking is required, with up to six segments total. One stopover is allowed, but the time spent at the stopover point cannot be longer than the time spent at the destination. On the SkyTeam partner award chart, China is in the Southeast Asia region.
- Redeeming Etihad partner flights: the specific award charts can be viewed by clicking each airline’s logo on this page. It appears that only round trips can be booked, and only on nonstop flights, with no mixing of partners.
- There are also non-alliance partners such as Malaysia Airlines, GOL, and Virgin Australia, but since there are not many sweet spots, I will not go into detail here.
Redemption sweet spots 【all dead now】
- For Alitalia-operated awards, you can call customer service to place tickets on hold, sometimes for as long as two weeks. According to foreign bloggers, it is best to have at least some miles in your account before calling (for example, transfer 1000 MR points into your AZ account first), then place the ticket on hold, transfer the rest of the points, and finally issue the ticket.
How to redeem
No matter how good an award chart looks, it is useless if the miles are hard to redeem. And redemption is exactly the Achilles’ heel of AZ miles (just like KE miles).
Awards on Alitalia flights can be searched on the official website, but the site only shows flights between cities around the world and cities in Italy. The US website is not very stable, so I usually use the Italian booking link instead (if you do not read Italian, make good use of Chrome’s built-in translation feature). After clicking, enter your membership number (note: remove the leading 000 and keep only the last 7 digits) and PIN, and you will see the following interface:
For example, searching a one-way economy award from JFK to Rome on September 15:
Click the red box in the upper right to bring up business class award space, although it does not show the required mileage. (Based on the AZ chart, the required miles are 48,000 one-way or 80,000 round trip.)
This flight is operated by an A330. There are both new and old cabin configurations, and the new cabin has fully flat business class seats (you can check how to identify the new vs. old cabin on the relevant FlyerTalk page):
There is also a calendar function on the left. Light green indicates standard economy award space, i.e. the lowest mileage level:
Partner awards must be booked by phone. The US customer service number is (800)223-5730, which reportedly routes to an Albania-based call center and is not very reliable. The Italian call center is reportedly more reliable, at +39 066 5649. Of course, if the most reliable customer service for a mileage program is the Italian call center, you can probably imagine what that means. So it is best to search segment by segment on DL and AF first, then call the Italian call center to look for the award space (keeping AZ’s rules in mind, such as a one-way not exceeding three segments, etc.). Sometimes even if you have already found the flights, the agent may say the ticket cannot be issued, or you may select English and still get an agent who does not speak English at all; in those cases, just hang up and call again. Ideally, wait until the agent finds the award, then transfer the points and ticket immediately. After all, MR transfers to AZ are instant, which is much better than transferring MR to ANA.