Last November Alaska Mileage Plan announced an award chart devaluation, which would kick in for bookings made on or after January 14, 2014. Much to my surprise and delight, all of the award chart changes only applied to travel on Alaska. They left their award charts for partner airlines intact, even for the most lucrative options.
Well, reader Pablo just emailed to point out that it looks like Alaska’s Mileage Plan partner award page for travel to Europe has been updated to reflect a price increase for business class travel on Delta between the US and Europe:
This seems to apply for tickets purchased on or after February 12, 2014. So travel booked now for subsequent dates would still qualify for the old rates.
While there’s no doubt that Alaska’s redemption rates on Delta in business class for travel to Europe were a steal at 90,000 miles roundtrip (well, assuming you could find award space), this seems like an odd change to make, especially since it’s the only thing on the award chart that was changed.
My guess is it’s just a small part of their frienemy relationship right now.
(Tip of the hat to Pablo)
thanks for the update! Hopefully no more devaluations in 2014
alaska can raise delta to sky high and most people wouldnt care.
Just a heads up- I checked in for a Delta flight out of ORD last week and the Delta agent told me my Alaska MVP Gold status wouldn't be honored on Delta as Delta was no longer going to be a partner with Alaska. He noted the intense competition with Alaska on the west coast and tried to give me the Delta mileage plan number to status match. Reached out to Delta and Alaska on...
Just a heads up- I checked in for a Delta flight out of ORD last week and the Delta agent told me my Alaska MVP Gold status wouldn't be honored on Delta as Delta was no longer going to be a partner with Alaska. He noted the intense competition with Alaska on the west coast and tried to give me the Delta mileage plan number to status match. Reached out to Delta and Alaska on Twitter and both played dumb. It's odd that a desk agent would know more/be so open about it, but it seems plausible given what's been going on.
If it wasn't for lucky, I wouldn't know anything about Alaska's award program. I think the mileage redemptions are very fair right now, so I'll continue to migrate toward their program. Even if they raised their redemption levels some, I think they have an outstanding program and I love their search engine. They just need to add Cathay and anyone else I'm missing on the list. Kudos Alaska!
AS had the same cost as DL but then DL raised the r/t cost (to 125k?). So, I would assume this is more related to that.
I was thinking the same thing as BFrankley. I hope this wasn't some kind of subtle hint towards more catastrophic changes O_O
Any fears this is foreshadowing changes to Alaska's best partner awards? Gotta save up 140k for Cathay to SA ASAP!
Not a ton of notice, but hard to hate on it. Still a far better deal than booking with Delta directly, and an increase of 10k miles isn't the type of major devaluation you'd really want a lot of notice about...