Huge Alaska Mileage Plan Award Changes Live

In the past few weeks, major changes have been made to award pricing with the Alaska Mileage Plan program. This process hasn’t happened overnight, but rather we’ve seen the pricing change gradually. I wanted to post an update and reminder that all of the new pricing should be live as of today.

Let’s recap all the details, as just about everything has changed about Mileage Plan award pricing. Let me just say upfront that Alaska isn’t pulling a Delta SkyMiles here, in terms of trying to destroy the value of its program. While the former sweet spots have largely been eliminated, the program has become much more widely useful. I actually think changes along these lines were long overdue, and there are now some great new uses of Mileage Plan miles.

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Alaska Mileage Plan overhauls award redemptions

Alaska Mileage Plan has introduced new award pricing, which is intended to be significantly more transparent than the previous pricing system. Not only that, but Mileage Plan has rolled out award redemptions on partner airlines globally, and is even working toward allowing multiple partners to be booked on a single award. Let’s talk more about what that looks like.

New zone & distance-based award charts

With these changes, Alaska Mileage Plan has three simple award charts that are a combination of zone and distance based. The airline claims that with this new distance-based structure, 60% of partner nonstop routes in economy start at a lower price point, while 64% of partner nonstop routes in business class start at a lower price point.

There is the Americas award chart, which covers any travel from the United States to anywhere in the Americas, including North America and South America.

Then there’s the Asia-Pacific award chart, which includes travel from the United States to Asia-Pacific, within Asia-Pacific, and between Asia-Pacific and Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Then there’s the Europe, Middle East, and Africa award chart, which includes travel from the United States to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and travel within Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

The most significant thing to understand here is that the “starting at” prices are actually what you’re going to pay if there’s saver level award availability. All partners have the same award pricing, assuming there’s saver award availability. That’s a big improvement over the previous situation, where different partners had different pricing.

There are a few other important things to mention:

• Award pricing is based on the cumulative distance of one-way travel
• As you can see above, there’s a hierarchy of award charts, so the Americas chart only applies if you’re traveling within the Americas, while the Asia-Pacific chart applies if traveling from the United States to Asia, and the Europe, the Middle East, and Africa chart applies if traveling from the United States to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa
• Award routing rules remain the same as they previously were, though of course the more distance you travel, the more you’ll pay

Award redemptions opened up globally

Under the previous Mileage Plan system, you could only redeem Mileage Plan miles for travel within and between select regions. That has changed with the new program, as Mileage Plan has opened up redemptions on partners globally. This is an exciting and long overdue change, as there are no longer geographic restrictions on redemptions.

More redemption options on more partners

Not only has Alaska Mileage Plan opened up redemptions globally, but the program has also rolled out more kinds of awards:

• Mileage Plan has introduced premium economy redemptions on American Airlines and Japan Airlines
• Mileage Plan has rolled out more non-saver award options on partners than before
• This is very specific, but for travel in Icelandair Saga Class (business class), pricing is now based on premium economy rather than business class, given the type of product that Icelandair offers

Multi-airline awards coming in late 2024

Currently Alaska Mileage Plan doesn’t let you mix partners on a single one-way award ticket. You can fly Alaska Airlines to a gateway, and then a partner airline for the rest of your journey. As of later in 2024, Mileage Plan intends to allow members to mix two partners on a single one-way award ticket, which is an exciting development.

For those wondering why it has taken so long, it’s my understanding that this has been a technology limitation up until now, though the airline is working on resolving that.

Partner award sales will become a regular thing

Going forward, Mileage Plan will offer regular global partner award sales. The intent is that there will be quarterly, limited-time promotions featuring special pricing of up to 50% off, on specific partners or routes, or to specific destinations. That sounds great, though let’s see what the execution is like.

Stopovers are here to stay

With these Mileage Plan changes, Alaska hasn’t made any changes to its stopover policy, which continues to be extremely generous. As before, you’re able to make a stopover on most redemptions at partner hubs, so nothing has changed there.

My take on these Alaska Mileage Plan changes

Here’s the thing — if it were still 2016, I’d say that these Mileage Plan changes are a massive devaluation. For those of us who are savvy with redeeming miles, the Mileage Plan program has historically been so useful because of a few sweet spot awards, particularly for transpacific travel. For example, being able to redeem 70,000 Mileage Plan miles for a Cathay Pacific one-way first class award to Asia or beyond was an incredible value.

But times have also changed, and that’s not Alaska’s fault, frankly. The sweet spot awards that we used to love Mileage Plan for are basically theoretical at this point, as there’s no availability. When the last time we saw a transpacific Cathay Pacific first class award bookable through Mileage Plan? I don’t remember the last time I saw one…

The way I view it, with these changes, Mileage Plan redemptions are switching from being theoretically aspirational, to being much more practical. With that in mind, a few thoughts about these changes:

• I’m thrilled to see Mileage Plan finally introduce redemptions globally, rather than only in select regions
• It’s great that Alaska is bringing back a transparent and simple award chart, where we’ll know exactly how much we’ll pay for saver awards
• The new redemption rates are extremely lucrative for shorter distance travel, and this chart is useful given Alaska’s unique airline partners beyond oneworld, ranging from Condor, to Icelandair, to Singapore Airlines
• I’m also happy that Alaska is planning on introducing multi-partner awards in the coming year
• These changes definitely devalue some sweet spots considerably, but I’d say they do a good job of distributing value across redemptions more equally; that’s useful right now, given that the sweet spots were largely theoretical
• Call me naive, but I think these changes are actually intended to make the program more broadly useful, rather than intended as a devaluation; there are a few loyalty programs run by avgeeks who are genuine with their intentions, and Alaska Mileage Plan is one of those programs

Crunching numbers on Alaska Mileage Plan award changes

Let’s use some real life examples of how award pricing has changed. First, here are a few situations where the increase in award pricing is awful:

• A Qantas first class award from Los Angeles to Sydney would go from costing 70,000 miles to costing 130,000 miles
• A Qantas business class award from Los Angeles to Sydney would go from costing 50,000 miles to costing 85,000 miles
• A Cathay Pacific first class award from Los Angeles to Hong Kong would go from costing 70,000 miles to costing 130,000 miles
• A Cathay Pacific business class award from Los Angeles to Hong Kong would go from costing 50,000 miles to costing 85,000 miles

Of course as mentioned above, the issue is that there’s almost never any availability with these redemptions, so that’s largely a moot point.

There’s also so much more broad usefulness with the new program, though. Let me just give examples of a few redemptions that stand out to me:

• The new program offers huge value for short haul awards within the Americas, as you’re able to redeem 4,500 miles for an itinerary of up to 700 miles, and 7,500 miles for an itinerary of up to 1,400 miles
• An Icelandair business class award from the United States to Europe via Iceland (with a stopover) costs just 35,000 miles (due to this pricing being updated to premium economy)
• Flying from the Northeast of the United States to Ireland or England costs 45,000 miles in business class, or 67,500 miles in first class
• A Qatar Airways business class award from Doha to Mumbai decreases in price from 40,000 miles to 15,000 miles
• A Japan Airlines business class award from Tokyo to Shanghai decreases in price from 35,000 miles to 15,000 miles
• A Malaysia Airlines business class award from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok decreases in price from 65,000 miles to 15,000 miles

Bottom line

Major changes have just been implemented at the Alaska Mileage Plan program. We’ve seen the introduction of new zone and distance based award charts, which determine award pricing.

Obviously these changes are a mixed bag. The sweet spot redemptions that previously existed with the program have largely been devalued. However, those sweet spots were largely theoretical, given the lack of availability we’ve seen on carriers like Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, and Qantas.

Instead, Mileage Plan has switched to a program that’s much more practical, with particularly good value for short haul redemptions across the globe. Mileage Plan is finally allowing redemptions without geographic restrictions, and later in 2024, we’ll even see multi-carrier redemptions introduced.

What do you make of these Alaska Mileage Plan changes?