Cool: Alaska Airlines Gives All Employees 90K Miles

Can they sell them on Ebay? LOL!

You should write about American not extending SWUs. Ive seen no content on this matter

Would bet anything that employees would've preferred an actual cash bonus. To pay for real things. Nothing worse than cheap management being out of touch with the rank and file.

Historically, Alaska has offered confirmed tickets to employees as appreciation, subject to availability in a specific fare class.

With flights so full, finding availability has been challenging, so miles are a good alternative and enable travel beyond the Alaska network.

Alaska will cover the tax withholdings owed on the miles for employees.

I suppose 90k is about a confirmed domestic round trip for a family of 3? If they book Xmas/NY early this would truly be a once-in-a-careertime experience...

"Alaska will cover the tax withholdings owed on the miles for employees."

That doesn't mean you don't need to pay tax on that. It's still income.

But I guess many people still think their tax refund is getting extra money to spend from the government.
Or stimulus check is free money.

I don't think any airline recognises that miles have any implications of "value" if there are no implications of value, why do you need to pay tax for it? I am living in Singapore, so I don't have any knowledge of the US Tax system, correct me if I am wrong.

I say Ben gives them a dose of their own medicine. Give ‘em a credit card pitch. They’ve had a taste now they want more.

Will we loyal AS Mileage plan members (I am Gold 75) get anything? Maybe 90 miles?

Giving away billions of miles to paid employees will certainly make redemptions more expensive for those of us who are paying them to fly.

Will we loyal AS Mileage plan members (I am Gold 75) get anything? Maybe 90 miles?

Giving away billions of miles to paid employees will certainly make redemptions more expensive for those of us who are paying them to fly.

Bad timing for their employees -- the usability of alaska miles has dropped in the last 3 months to almost nothing available. Kind of a sad story. I prefer to think that mgmt didn't intend it this way, but sometimes good intentions just don't lead to good results.

To clarify -- economy tickets are still available but no useful business class tickets. The question is will it ever go back to what it was -- probably not.

Bitter much?

I think you mean your company is "paying them"?

I'm Exec Platinum on American, so this would affect my ability to redeem miles, but I have no curmudgeon feelings about it like you...the AS staff deserve the recognition and reward, which should be more apparent when reading the Alaska statement as well.

More inflation in an already massively inflated program.

I'd imagine the main use would be tickets for friends since the employee and their family get free tickets.

Corporate office “Here are 90,000 Alaska miles” while actually thinking “Good luck finding an away space suckers!”

While there is some value to this gift, 1.7 cents/mile is laughable. For economy tickets w/Alaska Air, the typical redemption was about 1.25 cent/mile in the recent past. However, Alaska Air has quietly devalued frequent flyer miles to around 0.9 cents/mile. Still, employees can use these point to be able to book a more solid reservation than the usual non-rev, standby method...especially if they lack senority. Or as others stated, gift them to family/friends.

Standby/non-rev tickets are "free", but it can be tricky getting a seat, especially on busy routes. So this would be a way to have a solid reservation and still only have to cover taxes/fees.