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Panorama Club Overview
Panorama Club is the frequent flyer program of Ukraine International Airlines. UKIA is essentially a budget carrier flying an outdated fleet with a basic level of service. Based in Kiev it flies to mostly European destinations with a few long-haul flights to Istanbul, Dubai, New York and Delhi.
Why would you use Ukraine Airlines and panorama Club
They’re cheap. That’s all. If you’re in Ukraine and looking to travel between Kiev and Lviv or from Kiev to neighbouring Minsk in Belarus or Chisinau in Moldova, they will probably be the cheapest option. If you’re looking for a budget carrier to get to Kiev then you’d be better off looking at the main European low-cost airlines like (shudder) Ryanair.
Tiers and benefits
There are 3 tiers but they will only be of interest if you are flying regularly with them paid for by your employer. The higher tiers offer higher earning rates and lounge access, but there are stingy restrictions on these benefits. Priority boarding is not much use when most often at the small eastern European or Ukrainian airports boarding is by bus.
Status matches seem to be unavailable.
Earning miles
Earning is revenue based. For entry-level members you earn 5 miles per US dollar spent, excluding taxes. You can also earn with some hire car and hotel partners, but you shouldn’t waste your time.
Miles expiry
Miles expire 3 years after earning.
Spending miles
It’s very simple. For each 100 miles you will get a discount of 1 USD off any ticket. That’s very poor, and you can’t use miles to pay the taxes. Since taxes are a high proportion of ticket prices you will in every case be better off paying cash than bothering to collect Panorama Club miles. Even if your employer is paying for the tickets it will take a lot of flights before you can get a “free” flight, and the remaining taxes are likely to mean it still won’t be attractive compared to cash tickets.
Using small mileage balances
There are no transfer options or shopping rewards. Panorama Club has no partner airlines for spending miles. The only thing you can do with small expiring balances is donate them to charity – https://www.flyuia.com/ua/en/panorama-club/under-the-wing
Fleet
Nothing interesting. Outdated 777s with a 2-3-2 layout in business class, and equally boring 767s with a 2-2-2 layout.
Lounges
The UKIA lounge at Kiev’s Boryspil airport is basic with sandwiches and limited alcohol, but it does have showers. Most of the lounges UKIA status members would have access to across Europe are easily available via Priority Pass or Dragonpass.
Promotions
They regularly offer double points promotions.
Opinion
Rating: ★
It’s a completely boring program with no opportunities for outsized redemptions. The fleet is outdated, service and facilities are average.
The only thing UKIA has going for it is very cheap flights out of Kiev to nearby countries, which can make for a very cheap multi-centre holiday visiting Kiev and Chernobyl, Minsk in Belarus, and Chisinau in Moldova, all close enough, small enough, cheap enough, and interesting enough to make for a really good value and varied short break.
