Major changes are coming for ITA Airways, Italy's national carrier, and frequent flyers are going to start feeling it. While the airline has continued its divergence from SkyTeam and further alignment with the Lufthansa Group, one key transition now has a formal start date: the end of the road for ITA's Volare loyalty program.

While this has been well anticipated, ITA Airways has now confirmed a clear timeline of when Volare will be phased out. For the travelers who have earned or redeemed miles through the program, the next year will be a very critical period with deadlines, decisions, and unanswered questions.

Here's what we know so far-and what frequent flyers should be paying close attention to as ITA Airways positions for life within Star Alliance:

Its Volare Loyalty Program, scheduled to be discontinued in spring 2026

ITA Airways has written to Volare members confirming the loyalty program will technically remain live until March 30, 2026. At that point, the program will be fully shut down.

Up to the cutoff, members will still be able to accrue Volare points through flights and eligible partners. Similarly, award redemptions for ITA-operated flights and its partner airlines will be available until the same date. Once flight redemptions are closed, the members will still be allowed a small grace period to use their remaining points for non-flight rewards.

Specifically, redemptions of merchandise and retail partner offerings will be allowed through April 30, 2026. Following that, any unused points would be subject to expire, although ITA has not yet published formal terms with respect to the forfeiture or final account closures.

It is an ambitious timetable, which for travelers holding significant Volare balances will make early planning necessary.

What Happens After March 30, 2026?

While ITA Airways has made crystal clear when Volare will end, the airline has refrained from detailed guidance on what happens immediately after that. That said, March 31, 2026, is widely expected by industry observers to mark the airline's official transition into the Lufthansa Group's Miles & More loyalty ecosystem.

The shared frequent flyer program Miles & More is employed by Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, and Brussels Airlines, among a number of European carriers.

Once ITA fully adopts it, their loyalty operations will fall under the same arrangement as their new corporate partners.

While the timeline logically makes sense, ITA has not yet confirmed an exact migration date or what it will take to mechanically make it happen. Questions surrounding mileage transfers, elite status recognition, and account linking, for example, remain unanswered for now.

The Bigger Picture: ITA's Move Towards Star Alliance

But the retirement of Volare is not an isolated move. It is part of a broader realignment as ITA Airways moves further away from SkyTeam toward full membership in the Star Alliance, which is set to be completed sometime in 2026.

ITA has been steadily ramping up cooperation with Star Alliance carriers over the past year. Perhaps most noteworthy, the airline has been building out a partnership with United Airlines that already includes reciprocal elite benefits and mileage earning and redemption opportunities.

These steps, one after the other, suggest that ITA is focused on easily transitioning into an alliance. Once complete, Star Alliance membership will result in ITA passengers having far greater access to a global network and increased connectivity with lounge access on more partner airlines.

Why Volare Is Being Phased Out

From a strategic point of view, ITA Airways no longer has any reason to maintain a stand-alone loyalty program. Running Volare together with Miles & More will lead only to duplication, complication, and increased costs, especially as the airline becomes more tightly integrated with Lufthansa Group operations.

Sunseting Volare will enable ITA to:

• Simplify loyalty operations
• Harmonize the benefits across the partner airlines.
• Offer customers a single-mileage currency.
• Reduce administrative overhead

In the end, frequent flyers may benefit from such consolidation through wider access to redemption networks and more dependable elite benefits around Europe and beyond.

Yet, this transition period brings in uncertainty for the frequent flyers who have planned their loyalty strategy based on Volare.

What We Still Don't Know About the Transition

Even though it was clear when the Volare project would ultimately end, there was still much that was not covered. Chief among those facts and circumstances which had yet to be addressed were:

• Will miles with Volare automatically convert into Miles & More miles?
• If it does, what will the conversation ratio be?
• Does elite status carry over, and for how long?
• Will users have to manually combine accounts?
• How will lifetime or long-term benefits be addressed?

This leaves Volare members in a holding pattern until ITA Airways-or better yet, Lufthansa Group-provides official guidance. Historically, airline loyalty migrations have run the gamut from seamless automatic transfers to more restrictive conversions with conditions around expiration.

Frequent flyers must pay closer attention to announcements from the top and not assume what happened in previous mergers of airlines will occur this time around.

How Members of Volare Should Prepare Themselves Now

Having a firm date for the end is very helpful, and makes it so that the members of Volare have just over a year in which to plan strategically. While there is no immediate need to rush into doing things, a pre-active approach does much to help in the creation of value as well as minimization of risk.

The following are just a few practical steps travelers might want to consider:

• Track regularly your balance within Volare.
• Identify high-value redemption opportunities before March 30, 2026
• Avoid speculatively earning close to the program's end.
• Keep an eye on news about its official migration date.
• Consider the redemption of miles, the earlier the better

When in doubt, a good rule of thumb is flexibility and caution until further clarity. This often means redemption for flights rather than merchandise, which can yield more value, especially as program closures approach.

What Miles & More Could Mean for ITA Flyers

Once ITA finally integrates Miles & More, passengers will have access to one of the largest and most established loyalty programs in Europe. Miles & More is sometimes considered to have higher redemption rates, but the plus side is that it offers extensive partner availability and strong coverage across Europe, North America, and Asia.

Potential benefits include:

• Seamless earning across Lufthansa Group airlines
• Expanded Star Alliance redemption opportunities
• Greater international elite appreciation
• Improved lounge access across alliance hubs

In the case of Italy-based travelers especially, Miles & More could bring notably better long-haul connectivity through Lufthansa Group hubs such as Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, and Vienna.

Final Thoughts

The very moment when ITA Airways finally retired its Volare loyalty program is a milestone in the airline's transformation. With Volare set to expire on March 30, 2026, the countdown has really begun for frequent flyers to rethink their strategies.

While many details about the transition to Miles & More remain unclear, the broader direction is evident. ITA is aligning itself more closely with the Lufthansa Group and preparing for full Star Alliance membership moves that could significantly enhance its global reach and appeal.