Retroactively claim miles in different alliances?

Question

Last year I was stupid enough to claim 3 domestic Mexican Aeromexico-flights in my KLM account. They ended up being worthless and I was unable to change them back to Aeromexico as I plan to visit Mexico more often. I am trying to be a bit smarter about claiming my miles, even on cheap short European flights. I have these flights in 2014:

• February 2014 - TAP Portugal - EU <> Brazil
• February 2014 - Avianca - Domestic Brazilian Flight
• June 2014 - Air France - Paris
• July 2014 - Brussels Airlines - Brussels
• August 2014 - EasyJet/RyanAir - Ibiza
• December 2014 - British Airways - Amsterdam

Of these 6 flights I have only claimed the BA flight, which was easiest. I have contacted TAP Portugal, but as I made a TAP Portugal account in March 2014, they said I was too late with claiming the miles of this long flight. I have a Turkish Airlines account, but they seem to only accept their own flight, even though they are in an alliance.

Is there still any chance for me to properly reclaim the Brazilian international flight and the Paris, Brussels, Avianca domnestic flights?

Answer 1

There are some frequent flyer programs that allow claiming miles before enrollment in the program. I don't believe that there exists an overview of these, but here is one idea:

Aegean Airlines accept retro-claims for star alliance flights for at least 6 months after the flight. Source: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/aegean-airlines-miles-bonus/1435148-retro-credit-before-enrollment.html (their Terms&Conditions are a bit vague here).

So your Brussels Airlines flight can be credited there, but for TAP Portugal, the 6 months deadline is tight. The Avianca flight should also be fine as that airlines is not listed in the Terms and Conditions for the 6 months rule.

Note that you can definitely claim Star Alliance flights to Turkish Airlines. You may have to call them and your booking class might have been so cheap that you don't earn any miles on it in some program. Also, check their terms & conditions for until when a retro-claim can be made and whether you must have been enrolled in the program before the flight or not. As a preparation, you need to find out your ticket number - the six-letter booking code often does not work for claiming across alliances. Booking confirmation mails typically have them. An alternative source are the paper boarding passes, if you still have them.

EDIT: Turkish Airlines has a link to a claim form for partner airlines here: http://www.turkishairlines.com/en-int/miles-and-smiles/earn-mile/claim-your-missing-flights and they also say explicitly that "Retro-claims are allowed only for activities that are at most 12 months old." - since miles are pretty much only useful when many are collected to the same account, this may be your best option.