Air China spoils the surprise: ITA Airways in Star Alliance on April 1

On March 20, the confirmation finally came: ITA Airways will be fully integrated into the Miles&More program starting April 1.. Expected news, but actually-not entirely new.

As everyone focused on that press release, Air China had shortly before released a real scoop which, between confusing translations and internal communications, went almost unnoticed.

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The Air China spoiler (and the "Alitalia" misunderstanding)

The March 17, in fact, Air China had issued an update on its PhoenixMiles program that, upon reading, did not anticipate ITA Airways' entry into Miles&More, but directly into the Star Alliance world.

A detail that is far from minor, because atd today there is still no official communication about this. Joining Star Alliance is much more important news than simply "moving" the loyalty program. Obviously an important detail to inform their customers of the news for those who fly aboard ITA.

The reason why this information has gone unnoticed? Mostly a matter of translation.

The communication issued by Air China was designed for the PhoenixMiles program audience and, as is often the case, was not refined for an international audience.

In fact, the ad is entirely in Chinese and, trying to translate the text, a curious detail emerges: ITA Airways is referred to as "Alitalia".

A seemingly trivial mistake, but one that had a concrete effect: it made the news less immediate to understand and, more importantly, less credible in the eyes of those who read it quickly. For many fans, reading "Alitalia" in 2026 sounds more like a typo than up-to-date information. And so, what was in fact a major spoiler was ignored or underestimated.

In fact, the content was much more relevant than it seemed: not only confirmation of the integration into Miles&More, but also a clear hint about ITA Airways joining the Star Alliance. It is one of those cases where the news was there, but lacked the context to really understand its weight.

ITA Airways in Star Alliance, what changes

The conclusion of ITA Airways' integration process into Star Alliance is a Issue of marginal interest to the Italian passenger, since the loyalty program from the same day will be Miles&More almost all frequent flyers will have no problem accumulating and/or using points.

On the contrary, the news is most important for all Italian passengers, and others, who fly aboard ITA Airways, but use a loyalty card other than Lufthansa Group's.

Star Alliance membership means that those with status on airlines other than LH Group will also be able to have their benefits recognized by flying ITA Airways, including lounge access, priority check-in and boarding.

Unlike today which provides limited benefits only for those who have cards with United.

The news will also have a big impact on ITA's lounges at Linate and Fiumicino, to date in fact the doors would not open to Star Alliance passengers except for those in the LH group, once the final integration takes place instead everyone will be welcomed: from Aegean to TAP, Air China to Singapore Airlines.

Now all that remains to be seen is whether Air China made an April Fool's joke or simply burned the news.

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