Tag: Alaska Airlines

What Are Miles And Points Really Worth? (2023)

TProphet8 Comments

Nearly every airline program I work with at AwardCat has massively devalued. And yet, I keep seeing the same optimistic points valuations on every blog. In my view, valuations are mostly a lie. While it might be theoretically possible to achieve the valuations noted, it’s clear that for the majority of redemptions, points aren’t worth anywhere close to what is ordinarily claimed.

Working with a shadowy group of Pacific Northwest miles and points enthusiasts, I have created a points valuation chart using an entirely new methodology. The truth is, the value of points varies per redemption and a lot of the value is theoretical (tickets to Amsterdam are generally undesirable in February, even if they’re still expensive in paid business class relative to redeeming with points).

This chart focuses on flights, not hotels. There is one exception: I did factor in the value of Hyatt transfers from Chase, because these really can deliver outsize value. Other hotel programs usually aren’t good value in exchange for transferable points.

cheap motel
You can usually get better value when booking independent hotels versus transferring bank points to a hotel program

Along the same lines, some options for redeeming your points are really good value, and others are not. So, we tried to calculate a weighted average based on a mix of awards redeemed within the program (as most users do; it’s rare that anyone uses their points only for the most aspirational of journeys). We also defined ceilings: Realistic Ceiling and Aspirational Ceiling, which reflect the highest value that can realistically be attained by most people, and the highest value that would typically be attained for an aspirational trip.

In particular, given the “ceiling” valuations, there are both objective and subjective influences and there’s probably room for folks to argue. For example, Aeromexico offers a tantalizing round-the-world award chart that should, in theory, offer far greater value than the 1.2 cent aspirational ceiling I have assigned. There are only two problems: partner availability is virtually nonexistent to Aeromexico on Korean Air, Delta, KLM and Air France in business class, and virtually all SkyTeam carriers levy fuel surcharges (along with Aeromexico itself). A round-the-world trip in economy class (with hefty fuel surcharges paid on every leg) looks a lot less aspirational, doesn’t it?

Conversely, Alaska Airlines crowns the aspirational ceiling (despite recent devaluations) because of their relatively low first class pricing, and because stopovers are permitted, achievable, and allowed on a one way trip. It’s harder than it used to be to take advantage of this, but stopovers really add outsize value. Air Canada similarly offers stopovers for 5,000 points each, although their comparatively high redemption rates lower their aspirational ceiling.

Airline/ProgramFloorWeighted AverageRealistic CeilingAspirational Ceiling
Aeromexico0.60.81.01.2
Air Canada0.81.31.92.9
Alaska0.81.32.14.2
American1.21.42.24.0
Amex0.71.11.42.9
Avios0.71.11.82.2
Bilt1.51.62.24.0
Brex0.60.81.01.7
Capital One1.01.31.72.9
Cathay Pacific0.81.21.92.4
Chase1.01.31.44.0
Citi1.01.31.72.9
Delta1.01.21.72
Emirates0.60.91.11.4
Etihad0.60.91.11.2
Flying Blue0.81.11.61.8
jetBlue1.21.21.31.3
LifeMiles0.71.21.82.7
Qantas0.51.01.23.9
Singapore0.81.01.31.7
Southwest Airlines1.21.31.41.4
Turkish1.11.52.42.4
United1.01.21.82.2
Virgin0.81.01.42.2
Average across all
programs		0.91.21.62.48
The above chart reflects my personal opinion of what airline and transferable points are worth, and is not the expressed opinion of AwardCat or any other party.

One of the biggest surprises to all of us was the low “floor value” of most points. This is because airlines and banks offer a lot of really unoptimal ways to spend points, from paying for WiFi charges to buying gift cards or statement credits towards credit card purchases. I ignored some of the worst and least optimal ways to redeem points and focused on flight related redemptions (either flights or enhancements to the onboard experience). Southwest and jetBlue win here, because it’s hard to spend your points for less than 1.2 cents each. While Turkish comes in just behind, this is primarily because there just aren’t very many ways (yet) to spend your points unoptimally in this program. And Brex (which, full disclosure, fired AwardCat as a customer so I do hold a grudge) takes the crown for least valuable transferable points. I’m very happy to have transferred my points out before they suddenly devalued their points with zero prior notice. That’s the risk you take with bank points, as I warned in 2016.

While again highly subjective, I think the weighted average is where most people are likely to redeem their points. This is surprisingly low. Some programs, such as Emirates and Etihad, have so hugely devalued their programs that their points average less than one cent apiece in redemption value. Singapore maintains a relatively low weighted average because of their high redemption rates for economy class flights, and their levying of fuel surcharges on partner flights. And the weighted average of bank points is about 30% more than their floor value because of the optionality for points transfers that they provide. I will point out that Chase’s own valuation of Ultimate Rewards points, when redeemed through their portal for travel, would seemingly (net of the likely profit gained by running their own travel agency) agree with ours.

Wrap-Up

I think that most sources online offer an overly rosy picture of the value miles and points can have. Now, I won’t say it’s because most of them financially benefit from you remaining invested in these programs, or that credit card links can pay hundreds of dollars in commissions. So, maybe they just haven’t updated their assigned valuations to account for the massive inflation in award costs? Or maybe they believe that when airlines and hotel chains assign a possible range of award costs, lower pricing will prevail more often than higher pricing (also, if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you)? Maybe they just really value the optionality of transferable points, to the extent that this optionality is worth considerably more than the points of transfer partners? Whatever reasons they have for their charts, here is mine. This is what I think points are really worth, for most people, most of the time, under most circumstances.

Do you agree? Vehemently disagree? Leave your comments below!

A Trip To Christmas Island

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Part 1: Planning

Earlier this year, Qantas ran a crazy sale on flights to Australia. I was able to score a $550 roundtrip on their A380 from Vancouver to Sydney. These weren’t nonstop flights (the outbound was from Dallas and the return was to Los Angeles), and Vancouver isn’t exactly a convenient airport for me to use given that I live in the Seattle area, but the savings were worth it—especially since the over 16,000 miles of flying credits at 100% to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan. I typically aim for 2.4 cents per point in fully loaded value from my Alaska Airlines points, and I’m regularly able to achieve this. So, it was like paying $75 each way. To Sydney, Australia.

Then, from a miles and points perspective, things got even better. Alaska ran a double miles promo for flights on Qantas, meaning that I’d get 200% mileage credit for these flights. When combined with the small mileage credit I received for my positioning flight on American, this $550 ticket scored me a massive points haul of 32,614 Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles. The way I spend them, it’s $783 in value, so in effect, Alaska Airlines paid me $233 to go to Australia. I don’t have any elite status with Alaska (most of my flights are paid for with miles and points, not cash) but if I had, I could have scored a nice tier bonus on top of this.

The catch was that August is winter in Australia, the weather isn’t great in Sydney, and the sale fare wasn’t available to other Australian destinations. Australian friends warned me that it’d be cold, so I looked into flying onward from Sydney to warmer destinations. I have been on an island kick lately, most recently visiting The Seychelles. I also have a trip booked to Providencia later next year. So when I started researching Australian island destinations, Christmas Island caught my eye.

The majority of Christmas Island is a national park

The island is most famous for its red land crab migration, which occurs during the rainy season. Millions of them swarm the beaches and cover them (along with the roads), basically creating a river of crabs. I wouldn’t be visiting at the right time of year for that, but I would be visiting early enough to disconnect from the Internet. Christmas Island is one of the few places in the world still connected only by satellite (a fiber optic connection to Singapore is currently under construction). Also, there are only two flights a week. So it definitely checked my box of “not reachable from work.” When I’m on vacation, I like to truly unplug, which, given the ubiquity of the Internet, is really difficult to do these days.

Internet is available only by satellite

I scheduled a day in Sydney and an overnight in Perth en route (to allow recovery time for missed connections–this is super important when visiting a place where there only two flights per week), and booked my onward flights. Flights to Christmas Island are very expensive on Virgin Australia on their fully economy class configured aircraft, but I was able to book this flight with 45,000 Delta SkyMiles. I also needed to get from Sydney to Perth in order to catch my flight, so ended up using American Airlines AAdvantage points for this. Domestic flights on Qantas within Australia in economy class cost 10,000 AAdvantage points each way. I also received a 2000 mile rebate on the roundtrip using a now-discontinued Citi credit card benefit, so I ended up paying 18,000 miles plus about $40 in taxes.

Continue to Part 2 – Qantas A380 Economy Class Review

How To Position With An Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Award

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When you’re booking an international award flight, one of the trickiest things to figure out is how to get from where you are going to and from international gateways. Although there is more point-to-point service nowadays, the majority of international flights travel between major hub cities with connecting flights on either end.

Alaska Airlines has a somewhat unusual and often frustrating rule when it comes to partner award tickets (these are tickets that involve flights on airlines other than Alaska Airlines). You can only mix a single partner and Alaska Airlines flights, which has historically made positioning really difficult on Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan award flights.

The upside of this approach is that it allows Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan to run separate award charts per partner, which (presumably) allows Alaska to price award flights in a way that reasonably correlates with their cost. So, rather than having a single chart for all partners that averages the cost across all programs, they can have a separate chart for each partner. Overall, I think this makes sense because some partners (such as Emirates) appear to be very expensive for the program while others (such as Condor and Icelandair) are relatively inexpensive.

dus airport

If Dusseldorf is your destination, it’s surprisingly difficult to get there with Mileage Plan.

The downside of this approach is that, in order to reach partner gateways, you’re limited to the reach of Alaska Airlines within North America (which used to be a serious drawback) and you’re also limited to the reach of the partner you’re flying. So, for example, if you are flying American Airlines to London, you can’t continue onward to the rest of Europe with British Airways. Additionally, in some cases, Alaska Airlines only has partnership agreements with a primary airline, and not all regional affiliates:

  • Cathay Pacific: No access to Cathay Dragon
  • Hainan: No access to Hong Kong Airlines
  • British Airways: No access to Comair (South Africa)

 

However, just to make things more confusing, there are other cases where it is possible to fly regional affiliates. You can use American Eagle flights on an American Airlines partner award, and you can also use Openskies flights on a British Airways award.

This means that when you’re booking an Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan award, it’s important to know which airlines fly to your destination, and what other ways you might possibly get there. For example, if you’re traveling to Dusseldorf, you won’t get there on Condor; they only fly to Frankfurt and that is the end of the line as far as Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan is concerned. You could do it on British Airways, connecting through London, but you must fly the entire route (except for connecting to and from the British Airways North American gateway city, which can be done on Alaska flights) on British Airways. However, when you consider the fact that British Airways charges more miles, the fact that British Airways also levies a fuel surcharge, and the pain of connecting through London, you’re probably better off flying to Frankfurt and taking the train from there to Dusseldorf.

Another thing that gets really confusing is which Alaska Airlines flights you can take in order to position for a partner award. Let’s walk through an example to see how it works. Suppose you want to travel from Seattle to London in business class this summer. There is a flight that seems perfect from North America to London:

BA jfk-lhr price

The problem is, when you try to start from Seattle, this flight doesn’t show up no matter what you do:

sea-lhr flight missing

The other flights are all mixed cabin itineraries, and the economy class segment is the long flight (by the way, Alaska, you really should fix this). So obviously you wouldn’t want to book these.

Frustratingly, though, there’s an Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to JFK! It should work, and you should be able to add this, right?

SEA-JFK not available at saver level

There is actually a specific reason why you can’t book this. It’s because you can only add an Alaska Airlines positioning flight if it’s available at the low “saver” level. And to find those flights, the best way to search them isn’t to look on Alaska Airlines’ Web site. Instead, you should search on the American Airlines Web site, which only shows Alaska flights in fare classes that can be hooked up to a partner flight. This surfaces a heretofore hidden option:

Hidden route to LGA

Wait, what’s this?

The perfectly timed overnight flight that would give you a full day in New York isn’t available for partner awards, so you can’t use it. However, by using the American Airlines Web site, another option surfaced.

Because this flight goes into a different New York area airport, and because of the overnight layover, this route didn’t show up on the Alaska Airlines Web site (although the Alaska site, to its credit, is considerably better at piecing together unconventional itineraries than most). So, to make this price out, we have to build it as a multi-city itinerary:

sea-dal-lga-jfk-lhr

You can force a routing by putting in the specific airports you want. It’s hard to see here, but I specified LGA on the inbound flight to New York, and JFK on the outbound. That caused it to price out:

priced out at 60k

Boom!

So, what’s really cool about this? Before the Virgin America merger, this is not a routing that would have worked. You’d have been stuck buying a flight to New York, or booking two separate awards. However, this routing makes use of Alaska’s newly expanded network to build in positioning flights.

It this an ideal itinerary? No. There is a fuel surcharge, British Airways has a below average business class, and there is a forced overnight in New York. However, you are flying in first and business class all the way to London, and have a full day to enjoy New York along the way. While not the best option, it’s certainly not a bad option for summer travel to Europe.

The next time you’re searching for an award flight with Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, don’t forget that you can add Alaska Airlines flights to your itinerary at no extra charge–if you can find partner availability. That’s the hard part, but with some creativity and a bit of luck, you can stretch your miles even farther!

MEGA POST: Flying Alaska Airlines For Fewer Points

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Since its merger with Virgin America, Alaska Airlines has a lot more reach than in the past. It is an airline that has been growing like crazy anyway, and with the addition of the Virgin America network, there are a lot more opportunities to connect than were previously available. This means that if you’re based on the West Coast (or traveling to the West Coast) it’s a lot more practical to use Alaska for cross-country flights than it used to be. Alaska has also added a ton of service to Hawaii and they fly to Costa Rica for good measure. They are also a great airline to fly (and one of my favorites) offering friendly Pacific Northwest hospitality, power at every seat, and free WiFi on every plane.

alaska airlines jet

Eskimo tails are showing up all over the country

One of the great things about Alaska Airlines is the number of partners it has. You’ll see plenty of blog articles extolling the virtues of its Mileage Plan, and I do think that Mileage Plan is pretty good overall. However, it’s not always the best program for booking flights on Alaska Airlines itself. Alaska’s partners sometimes have better award pricing.

Alaska has such a large number of partners that, with one exception, I am focusing on partners to whom you can transfer points. Other partners, such as Hainan and JAL, are primarily useful to people based in their respective local markets.

Programs I Recommend

Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan

While Mileage Plan isn’t always a good deal for Alaska Airlines flights, it sometimes is. For flights on Alaska Airlines, Mileage Plan has two very good sweet spots:

  • A stopover is allowed on one-way flights, provided you redeem at the highest 12,500 mile saver award level. This allows you to visit two cities on the same trip with one ticket. I wrote more about how to do this here.
  • Short-haul awards, when booked in advance, cost as little as 5,000 miles.
  • Domestic US award flights between 1,152 and 1,400 miles start at 7,500 points, versus 10,000 or more points with other programs.

 

Stopovers are cool, but they have limited utility for most people outside Alaska (where they are sometimes necessary, which is why I think Alaska Airlines still allows them). While it’s fun to add a tag flight to Anchorage onto your award flight from, say, LA to Seattle, it doesn’t really do you much good if you weren’t actually planning to visit there.

The real sweet spot? Almost any other airline program you use is going to charge a minimum of 7,500 points for an award flight on Alaska Airlines, so Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan can be significantly less expensive on short-haul flights. There is a catch, though. Alaska Airlines generally doesn’t give seats away at these award levels when you book at the last minute. You’ll need to book 3 weeks or more in advance.

Another sweet spot is award flights between 1,152 and 1,400 miles. On most award charts, these are more expensive than the 7,500 miles Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan charges. The same advance purchase requirements apply as for short-haul awards.

British Airways Avios

British Airways has a distance based award chart. It’s roughly aligned with Alaska’s distance based award chart, with similar award levels. However, you have to watch out because along with the sweet spots, there are some “sour spots.” For example, the Avios chart is usually more expensive than Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan for flights between 1,152 and 1,400 miles (I say “usually” because Alaska has a variable award chart and charges more for flights booked on short notice).

The program is also quirky in that it charges per flight. This means that if your flight involves a connection, using Avios could make your award much more expensive than in other programs. And a further quirk is that you can’t book Alaska Airlines flights online. Instead, you have to call in, and let’s just say that British Airways doesn’t run the same kind of top-notch call center operation that Alaska does.

Here are the things I think are best about using Avios for Alaska Airlines flights:

  • If you don’t have airline status, it’s the cheapest way to book Alaska Airlines flights you want to reserve, but might need to cancel. The cancellation fee is just $5.60 per segment for US domestic flights (for some reason there’s a massive change fee, so it’s cheaper to cancel and rebook).
  • The award chart is strictly distance based with no zones or borders. So, for example, you can fly from Los Angeles to Mazatlan for just 7,500 Avios each way. I think that’s far more interesting than the 12,500 Avios from the West Coast to Hawaii that every other blogger beats to death.
  • It’s relatively easy to get Avios. They transfer from HSBC Premier, American Express and Chase along with many hotel programs. There are also lots of bonus opportunities through the Avios shopping portal.
  • There are no close-in booking fees and award pricing doesn’t change. It’s the same price if you book 3 hours in advance as it is if you book 3 weeks in advance.

 

The downside? Awards are a little complicated to book, not searchable online, and availability is limited compared to what Alaska Airlines makes available to their own members. Still, this program is a great way to save points when booking Alaska Airlines flights.

Korean Air Skypass

Hardly anyone writes about using Korean Air Skypass for booking Alaska Airlines flights, and I think it’s probably because almost nobody does it. Also, there is a lot of speculation lately that this partnership will end soon, because Alaska’s relationships with other SkyTeam carriers have ended. Nevertheless, provided you are willing to deal with how much of a hassle this program is, it can be great to use if you’re traveling over a longer distance. Here are the advantages:

  • Flights within the US (except for Hawaii) cost 20,000 points roundtrip.
  • Flights to Mexico, Hawaii or Costa Rica cost 30,000 points roundtrip.
  • A stopover and an open jaw are both allowed.
  • There are no close-in booking fees and pricing doesn’t go up close to departure.

 

A lot of the reasons why round-trip awards are hard to book can be worked around with the generous stopover and open jaw rules. For example, you could fly from Seattle to San Francisco, stop over for a few days, continue to New York, take the train to Philadelphia, then return to Seattle from there. Not only does this allow you to visit 3 cities on a single ticket, but it gives you more options to find award availability.

So, what are the downsides?

  • You can only book tickets for yourself and immediate family, and family relationships require a lot of paperwork to prove.
  • Award tickets for travel on Alaska Airlines can’t be booked online. You have to book over the phone, and the call center is (to put it politely) difficult to work with. The agents are not native English speakers and they are kept on very strict timers, so try to rush the booking process.
  • Only round-trip itineraries are allowed.
  • Even though Delta is a Korean Air partner, you can’t mix and match with Alaska flights. You can only fly Alaska Airlines (including Horizon Air and Skywest flights marketed as Alaska).
  • Availability is more limited than to Alaska Airlines’ own members.

 

If you’re traveling over a long distance, though, this program is a no-brainer. 20,000 miles roundtrip from Anchorage to Fort Lauderdale is impossible to beat. It’s even really good for more conventional transcontinental flights such as from Seattle to New York.

It’s also a good deal for flights to Costa Rica when booking from certain regions. These cost 35,000 points when you redeem Korean Air SkyPass miles on Delta, but it’s only 30,000 points when redeeming on Alaska.

Note there is, from some regions, a better “sweet spot” with Costa Rica redemptions using Singapore KrisFlyer. However, this award isn’t available from all zones on their chart whereas there are no zone restrictions using Korean Air Skypass.

Singapore KrisFlyer

Singapore is one of Alaska Airlines’ newest partners. In fact, they are so new that as of this writing, you can’t redeem Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles on Singapore flights. Nevertheless, Singapore KrisFlyer members are able to use their miles on Alaska Airlines flights.

The award chart appears to have been created by an intern who has very limited knowledge of US geography. It was obviously rushed out with very little review, because among other things it has invented the states of “North Dakorta,” “Goergia” and “Alsaka.” I was absolutely baffled the first time I saw it. Over time, I’m guessing Singapore will tighten it up, but for the time being, there are some amazing sweet spots. Here’s what I like about the chart:

  • One way awards are allowed, and connections en route are (in practice) allowed at no additional charge.
  • It’s as easy to get KrisFlyer miles as it is to get Avios. All the same programs apply.
  • Costa Rica and most Mexico flights are a crazy value. It’s only 12,000 points each way from most of the West Coast to Costa Rica or Mexico on Alaska Airlines.
  • Flying from Canada to Hawaii is only 11,500 points.
  • It’s 12,000 points from the West Coast to Hawaii, and only 12,500 points to Hawaii from the Midwest and mid-South. This is an especially good option for people in Dallas where award availability from the former Virgin America mini-hub at Love Field is excellent.
  • If you’re based in Dallas, last-minute flights to the East Coast from Love Field are excellent value. The price is the same as Alaska’s own distance-based chart, but it doesn’t go up close to departure.

 

The downsides:

  • The Singapore chart blocks a lot of routes. Las Vegas to Costa Rica? Well, even though you could easily connect in LAX, it’s not an option. The same applies from the East Coast to Costa Rica.
  • The Singapore chart is very expensive for short-haul flights to Alaska (such as from Seattle to southeast Alaska). Seattle to Ketchikan can be as little as 5,000 points on the Alaska award chart, but it’s 12,000 on the Singapore chart.
  • Intra-Alaska flights are extremely expensive because they cost the same as a flight from Alaska to Hawaii (which, on the other hand, is extremely cheap at just 12.5k miles).
  • No stopovers are permitted. Technically, “transfers” are not permitted either, but this seems to only apply to co-terminals (meaning no airport changes are allowed).
  • You can’t book Alaska Airlines flights with KrisFlyer miles online. Instead, you have to call in, and dealing with the KrisFlyer call center can be a challenge (to put it lightly).

 

To me, what is the best sweet spot? Costa Rica. It’s less expensive on the Singapore chart than any other award chart. While the Avios chart can be cheaper to a handful of Mexican destinations from Los Angeles, the Singapore chart beats it hands down if you’re going to or from anywhere else.

Cathay Pacific Asia Miles

While Cathay Pacific has a fairly expensive award chart for most flights on Alaska Airlines, they can deliver equivalent value to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan if you need to take a trip with a lot of stops. This is because Asia Miles allows you to take up to 5 stopovers on an award, and you can also include two open jaw connections. ** Edit: Technically you’re only allowed 2 stopovers because it’s a non-Oneworld award, but in practice agents have allowed me to do 5. Your mileage may vary.

Here’s an example. You could travel from Los Angeles to Seattle, stop for 3 days, continue to Ketchikan, take the ferry from there to Juneau, continue from Juneau 4 days later to Anchorage, stay a week, return from Anchorage to Seattle, take the train to Portland, and then continue 2 days later to Los Angeles on a flight that connects in San Francisco. The whole itinerary would cost 30,000 Asia Miles, which is the same number of points as if you booked with Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan and fully optimized your stopovers.

You can’t book this kind of itinerary online. Instead, you have to call in and work with the Asia Miles call center. Note that the Asia Miles program is very complicated and it can take a long time for agents to review the rules and ensure that your booking confirms. Some agents will claim you can’t do something that is actually allowed (they apparently get in a lot of trouble if they make any mistakes), so it’s best to hang up and call again if you know you’re in the right.

Programs I Avoid

Not every Alaska partner offers good value when redeeming their points for flights on Alaska Airlines. Here are the programs I generally avoid:

American Airlines AAdvantage

American Airlines makes very few seats on American flights available in their program. It is not a program I generally recommend accumulating miles in because the award chart has frequently devalued and the miles have become very difficult to spend.

Because of this, it might be tempting to spend your AAdvantage miles on an Alaska Airlines flight, especially because it’s so easy: Alaska flights are bookable on the American Airlines Web site. However, American Airlines offers generally poor value for these flights because their award chart is expensive. Domestic flights on Alaska Airlines cost 12,500 AAdvantage miles each way. Flights to Hawaii cost 22,500 AAdvantage miles each way. No stopovers are allowed.

The upside is that you can mix in Alaska flights with other flights to create a complete AAdvantage award itinerary. This can be a good deal if it helps you connect up with an American or other partner flight to your final destination. However, for an itinerary that strictly includes flights on Alaska Airlines, the award chart is only competitive for long, cross-country flights.

LATAM Pass

On paper, this distance-based award program has some really nice sweet spots. Check out their chart. They are particularly sweet for short distance intra-Alaska redemptions under 350 miles round-trip such as between Petersburg and Wrangell or Juneau and Glacier Bay. These cost only 3,750 points each way.

The problem is fees, the complexity of booking, and the complexity of earning points:

  • There is a $30 fee to redeem awards when booked over the phone, and this is not waived for airlines (like Alaska) that aren’t bookable online.
  • You have to book round-trip. Prices shown in the chart are each way based on round-trip purchase.
  • The LATAM Pass call center only operates in the Spanish language. If you need to do business in English, there is a complicated process to call in and request a call-back. This can take up to two days to arrange.
  • The service center books so few flights on Alaska that they may tell you outright that it isn’t possible (that’s what they told me, in writing!). It actually is, you just have to be persistent.
  • The only practical way to earn LATAM Pass points, apart from flying, is with their co-branded credit card. Unfortunately the card just isn’t very good.

Air France/KLM Flying Blue

Not only are the redemption rates relatively unattractive, you can’t book Alaska Airlines flights on the Flying Blue Web site. It requires dealing with their call center, which is based in Mexico. Additionally, this partnership ends in April, which means that you won’t be able to make any changes to tickets booked for travel after then.

Emirates Skywards

Redemption rates are unattractive using this program. If you’re stuck with Emirates points, Alaska Airlines flights are a great way (and in fact, one of the only ways) to redeem them with no fuel surcharges. However, you shouldn’t transfer points into this program to book flights on Alaska Airlines.

Qantas

Same story as Emirates: Redemption rates are unattractive using this program. If you’re stuck with Qantas points, Alaska Airlines flights are a great way to redeem them with no fuel surcharges. However, you shouldn’t transfer points into this program to book flights on Alaska Airlines.

Wrap-Up

Alaska Airlines goes more places than ever before, and has relatively generous award availability on their own flights. This is particularly true if you’re based in the former Virgin America hubs of Dallas and San Francisco, or the new mini-hub of San Diego. However, the best award pricing often requires using a partner program and booking over the phone.

How I Hacked My Trip To Sunny SoCal

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On my recent trip to Minneapolis, I was originally planning to return directly to Seattle on a nonstop flight with Alaska Airlines. However, after shivering in the frigid temperatures and looking at the terrible forecast for Seattle, I decided that it might be better to head somewhere warm.

Alaska Airlines has really been adding a ton of service to San Diego lately, and I was delighted to see that nonstop service from Minneapolis was starting the day I was leaving Minneapolis. Even better, saver level award space was available. This opened up a great opportunity for me because it was close to the Thanksgiving holiday and award space was very difficult to find. So I hatched a plan: fly to San Diego, rent a car, drive to LA, get an airbnb for a week, visit friends, drive to Phoenix for Thanksgiving with family, then back to San Diego, and finally, a flight back to Seattle.

msp-san-sea image

Two flights. One award ticket.

Well, the first order of business was changing my flight. I already had a flight booked from Minneapolis to Seattle using British Airways Avios. This had cost 10,000 Avios and $5.60 in taxes. However, if I simply changed the ticket with Avios, it’d cost a $55 change fee plus the difference in miles (another 7,500 Avios). British Airways charges per flight based on distance with a minimum cost of 7,500 points. This obviously wasn’t the optimal solution.

However, British Airways offers another option: you can cancel your flight and redeposit the Avios. This also costs $55, but there’s a loophole: the $55 is deducted from the taxes and fees already paid. If you cancel online, British Airways won’t refund any fees, but also won’t charge any additional. So, in effect, you can cancel domestic US flights booked with Avios for $5.60.

Given that I was flying Alaska Airlines, another option was to book with Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan. I typically don’t book Alaska flights with Mileage Plan miles (using them for partner redemptions instead), because most Alaska flights are short to mid-haul and are thus cheaper with the Avios award chart. However, Mileage Plan has a very unusual benefit: they allow a stopover on a one-way trip.

What does this mean? Alaska treats a trip from Minneapolis-San Diego-Seattle as a single ticket, even if you stop over for 10 days in San Diego. And if you can find space at the lowest award level, it means the trip costs only 12,500 miles. Stopovers are specifically allowed under Mileage Plan rules and while most people don’t take advantage, it’s an entirely legal and risk-free “hack.” The catch? You have to find “saver” level award availability (in economy class, “W” fares) for the entire journey. Your trip must be entirely on Alaska Airlines where a domestic stopover is involved (on partner awards, stopovers are only permitted in international connecting cities). And you can only take a stopover at a logical connecting point. San Diego was a logical connecting point for my trip from Minneapolis to Seattle, because it’s in the correct direction of travel and doesn’t exceed the maximum permitted mileage. Alaska does have some measures in place to prevent illogical connections, such as Minneapolis-Portland-Los Angeles-Seattle.

It’s not just in San Diego where you can take a stopover, and people in the Lower 48 probably aren’t the biggest users of stopovers. This is a really valuable benefit for folks in rural Alaska who often get stuck in Anchorage overnight before they can fly onward to anywhere. Without it, they’d effectively be unable to book award tickets to anywhere other than Anchorage. Additionally, many folks traveling from Alaska to the Lower 48 stop over in Seattle for shopping before heading home. Everything costs more in Alaska so this makes plenty of sense. The Tukwila Costco is strategically located near Sea-Tac Airport and I’d be surprised if at least 10% of its business isn’t Alaskans.

san-ont-phx-san

724 miles by air… and quite a few more by car.

Fortunately, the same benefit extends to those of us in the Lower 48, even at relatively new “mini hubs” like San Diego. Now, I’ll be completely honest: taking advantage of the stopover benefit did cost me money I wouldn’t otherwise have spent. After all, I was really going to Los Angeles and Phoenix, not San Diego. This meant I had to drive 100 miles farther than I wanted, but I did it in a rental car that was less expensive than it would have been in Los Angeles. I also had to overnight in San Diego versus flying out the day I wanted to leave, but the $35 hotel room I bought on Hotwire was cheaper (by far) than buying a flight. There were definite trade-offs, but I think they were worth it for the savings. And spending some time in San Diego, a city I often overlook, gave me the opportunity to reconnect with a friend I usually only see once a year.

The upshot? Look for new routes when you’re looking for award space. These are often wide open with saver level award space, even when most routes have been booked up for months around a busy holiday period. And if you’re flying on an Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan award ticket, don’t overlook the value you can get out of a stopover. This is a huge benefit. It’s one that really differentiates the program from its competitors (most of whom have taken away the ability to do this), and stopovers can really make an award trip more fun!

Using Award Travel For Boring Trips

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It’s November, and I need to take a trip to frigid Minneapolis next week. It’s a boring trip to a cold, boring city. I wasn’t particularly excited about going in the first place, and was even less excited when I saw the price. For the times of day I needed (it’s a tight schedule), I was looking at paying more than $600.

I need to fly out in the morning, fly back in the evening, it’s over a weekend – so I’m breaking all the rules of getting a cheap ticket. Cheap flights are the ones nobody wants to take, but if you want to take a flight at a good time of day it gets expensive in a hurry. Given that I went all the way to Fukuoka, Japan for under $600 it was pretty galling to see that the price for the schedule I wanted cost over $600!

cost of flight sea-msp

The outbound cost over $316… adding insult to the injury of a 6:45AM flight.

…and the return cost almost $300!

Less desirable schedules were possible for considerably less money, but in this case “less desirable” meant flights where I’d lose two entire days on the ground. This meant that I’d have to extend my trip to frigid Minnesota in exchange for a lower fare, which to me was a non-starter.

I didn’t expect that, with barely more than a week until travel, I’d be able to find a good value traveling with miles. Airlines have gotten pretty good with revenue management and these days, they give away far fewer seats (one reason why using an award booking service like ours is worth considering). However, this trip illustrates that it’s always worth checking! The Delta flight that cost over $316 was available for just 12,500 SkyMiles in economy class. And the Alaska flight that I wanted was available for 12,500 Alaska miles in economy class.

On its own, this would have been a pretty good deal, delivering about 2.5 cents per mile in value for the Delta flight (more than double what The Points Guy says they’re worth) and about 2.4 cents per mile for the Alaska flight (a nice bump above the 1.9 cent per mile valuation). However, I was able to get even better value than this by using British Airways Avios to book the Alaska flight. I scored a massive haul of these earlier in the year, and the Avios award chart prices flights by distance and number of segments.

Minneapolis to Seattle is a nonstop flight (which is important, because British Airways Avios charges per flight to calculate the cost). And clocking in at 1,399 miles, this trip costs 10,000 Avios based on distance. I was able to net nearly 3 cents per mile in value for my Avios points, which I think is exceptionally good. It’s exactly double what Avios are commonly considered to be worth.

These tickets are in economy class. This isn’t some theoretical valuation based on a premium cabin ticket I’d never buy, it’s a flight I would have bought with cash (although in all fairness probably at less convenient times, on different airlines, and involving connections in order to save money). On the airlines I’m flying, I’ll be able to take advantage of credit card benefits to check a bag, and award tickets aren’t considered “basic economy” fares so I’ve been able to select my seats in advance. More importantly, though, I have been able to choose exactly the schedule that minimizes the amount of time I have to spend in Minnesota in November! And that’s the very best savings of all.

HOT DEAL: $35 Off From Hainan Airlines!

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Hainan Airlines is a Chinese carrier and the newest partner of Alaska Airlines. Of the Chinese carriers, I consider them the most reliable with the best inflight service; however, they are also the smallest Chinese carrier so itineraries are less frequent and they don’t serve as many cities as Air China, China Southern and China Eastern (the three major Chinese carriers). Keep in mind that a “small” carrier in China is still roughly the size of a major US carrier. If you want to make a rough comparison, you could consider them something like the Southwest Airlines of China (except they do offer first class, unlike Southwest).

Hainan Airlines plane taking offHainan has been steadily expanding service to the US, most recently between Shanghai and both Seattle and Boston. They also fly between Beijing and both Seattle and Chicago. Within the US, Hainan codeshares with both Alaska and American Airlines, but Hainan is only a partner with Alaska. You won’t get any mileage or elite benefits through American. They also also offer a lot of connections throughout Asia via their subsidiary Hong Kong Airlines. Now that you can transit China visa-free, it’s really worth considering them as an option. This is especially true now that they are an Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan partner (although only Hainan-operated flights qualify for Alaska Airlines mileage plan credit).

On their Facebook page, Hainan is currently offering a $35 off coupon – and given that their flights are often the least expensive anyway, there is even more reason to try them.

Get Full Delta Credit For Miles Flown Plus 25K Europe Roundtrips!

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As has been widely reported elsewhere, Delta has done some really terrible things to their SkyMiles program (already one of the least lucrative frequent flier programs in the world) and for most people it is not a good value. Not only is mileage credit now granted based on the fare you pay, rather than the number of miles you fly (cutting mileage credit to half in many cases), but the number of miles needed to redeem awards is now entirely arbitrary. In some cases, you even have to pay Delta in order to redeem SkyMiles! It’s no surprise that given the rapid and massive devaluation, avid frequent fliers who once called SkyMiles “SkyPesos” have begun calling them “SkyRubles.”

Don’t get me wrong. Delta is generally a very good airline to fly–at least if you’re not flying on one of their “basic economy fares,” which offer a similarly terrible experience to other airlines. Generally speaking they run a reliable operation and fly well-maintained aircraft with decent amenities. The inflight service is generally also polite and professional, in stark contrast to most other US airlines. At many airports, Delta is also difficult to ignore, given their dominant position. If you’re based in Atlanta, for example, Delta serves all major US markets nonstop.

There is a loophole, however. You don’t have to use the SkyMiles program if you’re flying Delta. You can credit your miles to the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan or to any other SkyTeam partner. However, in most cases, this isn’t a good option. Very few Delta fares qualify for 100% mileage credit anymore with most partners. Additionally, every other Delta partner levies fuel surcharges on redeemed tickets, which Delta doesn’t do for flights originating in the US. However, there is one exception, which I found after researching every SkyTeam program in detail. Let me introduce you to OK Plus.

Czech Airlines logoOK is the IATA code for Czech Airlines, and their program, “OK Plus,” is a clever word play. You can’t actually view the terms and conditions or the accrual schedule for the OK Plus program without signing up. However, after doing the research, I found that the options are pretty incredible when it comes to Delta:

CSA Delta accrual schedule

Better than the 2014 Delta chart!

Yes, you read it right: Delta flights accrue at 100% of miles flown, except for paid business and first class which accrue at 200% of miles flown. There is one glaring exception, however: E fares. These are Delta’s “basic economy” fares and if you buy one of these, you will earn zero credit under the OK Plus program. So, if you book and fly an E fare, it’s probably best to credit it to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, which will at least net you 25% credit.

But wait, there's more!The good news doesn’t end here. Not only can you get 100% credit based on flown miles for your Delta flights, these miles will take you farther. CSA considers Iceland part of North America for the purposes of their program! So, if you want to take advantage of Delta’s seasonal service to Reykjavik (for which there is currently almost wide-open award availability), you can do it for only 25,000 miles.

So, of course, it’s not all good news, particularly for those wanting to earn elite status. Here are some of the limitations:

  • You have to fly two segments on Czech Airlines to earn SkyTeam elite status, and it can’t just be Czech Airlines-marketed flights; you need to actually fly on one of their planes.
  • In order to redeem an award ticket, you have to call their office in Prague and book over the phone; there is no online booking option.
  • There is a €36 booking fee.
  • One-way awards aren’t an option except for flights on Czech Airlines; only round-trip awards are possible.
  • Along with taxes, you have to pay the fuel surcharge for the flight you’re booking. However, Delta doesn’t currently have a fuel surcharge on domestic US flights, so you won’t pay anything if you redeem your miles this way. And in most situations, you have to pay fuel surcharges when you redeem SkyMiles on partners. For most scenarios, in a practical sense, you’re not much worse off.
  • No backtracking is allowed, “except to make a connection.” It seems like the intent of this rule is to prevent backtracking in combination with a stopover or open jaw, but it also appears that this could be enforced (or not) at the whim of the telephone agent.

So, those are the downsides. However, there are some really significant upsides:

  • Both a stopover and an open jaw (one each) appear to be permitted.
  • A maximum of 8 segments per roundtrip are permitted.
  • Changes and cancellations (with mileage redeposit) cost only €62, far less than SkyMiles.
  • Mixed class bookings are allowed, if you pay the fare for the higher cabin. So, if only economy class is available on an intra-Europe flight (where business class doesn’t really buy you much extra comfort), you could mix that along with business class for the transoceanic leg. This opens up considerably more award availability than would otherwise be available, particularly during the busy summer travel months.
  • You can mix Czech Airlines flights with the flights of any one individual SkyTeam partner. Depending on your routing, this might make it slightly easier to piece together an award ticket.

Why is the program still so generous? Probably because Czech Airlines almost went bankrupt. However, in 2013, they were bailed out by Korean Air (which took a 44% stake) and the Czech government. As the Czech flag carrier, it seems likely that they will continue flying. However, flag carriers can and do fail; Mexicana and Malev are two recent examples. You’ll have to balance the risk of Czech Airlines failing versus the risk of even further SkyMiles devaluations. I’ll personally take the risk and bank my miles in Prague.

So, there you have it: a way to earn full value for your discount economy tickets on Delta and redeem them for 25,000 mile roundtrip tickets to Europe! If you’re finding the SkyMiles devaluation tough to swallow, sign up here and start earning OK Plus miles today!

How I Claimed 2,500 Alaska Airlines Bonus Miles

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Alaska Airlines has, in my opinion, one of the most valuable frequent flier programs of any airline. So when there’s an easy opportunity to earn 2,500 bonus miles, I jump at the chance!

On a recent flight to Seattle, my bag arrived on the belt 25 minutes after my flight. With most airlines this would be pretty fast, but with Alaska it’s 5 minutes later than their 20 minute baggage service guarantee. No kidding: Alaska guarantees that you’ll have your checked bag at the carousel no more than 20 minutes after your flight, anywhere in their system. What does Alaska give you if your bag shows up late? Either 2,500 Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan bonus miles, or a $25 discount certificate good toward a future flight. This effectively refunds your checked baggage fee and you can even come out ahead if claiming the miles, because those are more valuable than $25.

image of bonus miles delivered to my Alaska account.

Bonus miles for late luggage, delivered!

To claim your miles, just see the baggage service representative. They’ll give you a voucher that you can use to either claim the discount or the bonus miles. It is fast and hassle-free, provided that your bag really was late. They do actually check. All bags are scanned as soon as they show up on the belt, and the time is compared with the published flight arrival time. So, no claiming the bonus unless your bags really are late.

The best part? I didn’t even pay for the checked bag! Alaska Airlines is running a promotion for the month of January where checked bags are free. So, checking a bag paid off more than simply avoiding the hassle of fighting for space in the overhead bin. All I had to do was pay attention to my watch and make an easy claim!

 

SkyMiles Scavenger Hunt to Bumpin’ Boise

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As some of you may know, in addition to running a startup and writing about travel here on #Seat31B, I also have a fairly serious hobby as a DJ. By “fairly serious” I mean that I own enough PA and DJ equipment to keep two stages full of happy people dancing all night, and I also play myself (typically the chill, lounge and psychill genres). Things got so much out of hand with my hobby a few years ago that I actually own a full-size 15 passenger van (with the seats taken out) that I needed to convince my insurance company was not intended for commercial use.

TProphet DJ photo

On the decks in Las Vegas

One of my favorite music festivals is held in the mountains of Idaho north of Boise. It is a small gathering (with enforced limited attendance) because the space is too small to accommodate more. I am friends with most of the organizers and many of the performers, and this is the last year that the event is happening. There really is no way that I could miss it, but at $350, tickets for summer travel are quite expensive from the Los Angeles area to Boise. This seemed a perfect opportunity to use my Delta SkyMiles, because Delta just launched a lot of new service from Los Angeles to Seattle, which I guessed would open up a lot of award seats.

I guessed wrong. Delta is just as stingy with award seats between Los Angeles and Seattle as they are with every other route. There was essentially no availability at all, but–for now–Delta remains a partner with Alaska Airlines. You can only book tickets at the “saver” award level with Alaska if you’re redeeming Delta miles, but there is often availability. You just have to be really flexible and search hard.

In this case, flexibility wasn’t my friend. I needed to travel on a specific weekend, and I just wasn’t finding anything on the Delta site. This isn’t surprising–delta.com is notoriously terrible when it comes to searching for awards. Instead, I searched on the Alaska Airlines site, and I did find availability. There was only one problem: the flight times were terrible and the airport was really inconvenient.

On the 20th, there was one flight from the Los Angeles area to Boise on Alaska. It left at 7:00am for Seattle from the Orange County airport near Disneyland (SNA), and after a 5 1/2 hour layover, connected to a Boise flight via Lewiston. If I used this flight, I’d either be staying in a hotel overnight near the Orange County airport or starting my journey around 4:00 in the morning. Coming back was much better–a flight through Seattle to Burbank, which is a lot more convenient.

Delta offers a lot of flexibility in award itineraries, though. You can have both an open jaw and a stopover on award tickets. This meant that I could potentially fly to Seattle on Thursday evening, overnight there (I have lots of places I can stay for free in between friends and family),  and then continue to Boise on Friday afternoon. I could also use different airports in the Los Angeles area for my origination and departure. Last night, though, there just wasn’t any inventory available–even with the maximum flexibility. This afternoon, I checked the Alaska Airlines website again. Jackpot! A seat opened up on the evening of June 19 from LAX to Seattle. All of the other seats I had found the previous day (which would line up perfectly with this itinerary) were still available, so I went off to delta.com to book my flight. Here is what it looks like:

LA-BOI

Although it is very hard to find award flights on delta.com, you can use the “multi-city itinerary” tool to feed flights one at a time to the site. You have to enter the trip segment by segment, so I entered the following:

  • LAX-SEA 6/19 -> evening
  • SEA-BOI 6/20 -> afternoon
  • BOI-SEA 6/23 -> afternoon
  • SEA-BUR 6/23 -> evening

All of the flights I had searched for showed up in the search results, as delta.com walked me through segment by segment. I picked the same flights that I had found with Alaska Airlines, and the award priced out correctly at $10.00 and 25,000 miles! This represents a value of approximately 1.4 cents per mile, a 40% premium over the usual 1 cent per mile value I assign to SkyMiles.

Is it possible to do better? Yes! You can get substantially better value–even double the number of cents per mile–using Delta miles to book Alaska Airlines award travel to Canada and Alaska (both expensive destinations), or to book AeroMexico travel to Mexico. However, there is another calculation in play, and that is what personally makes sense to me. I think it makes economic sense for me to spend $10 plus some hard-to-use points to enjoy a music festival in Idaho, but it makes approximately zero economic sense for me to pay $350 to do the same thing. Additionally, the Delta partnership with Alaska Airlines is very rocky. There is no guarantee that it’ll be easy–or even possible–to use SkyMiles to fly on Alaska in the future. And finally, it’s hard for me to book round-trip itineraries given my personal travel patterns. I am flying on a lot of one-way and multi-city itineraries lately, which aren’t generally possible to book with Delta awards.

The upshot? I’m going to have even more fun in Idaho this year knowing that I got there for free! 🙂