Uh Oh: Alaska Mileage Plan Partner Award Changes

If it's clearly good news, they wouldn't have felt the need to tell us that.

Bracing for impact...

The whole point of switching to Alaska's Mileage Plan was that it still used a distance-based accrual, but the Partner Awards were outstanding compared to the US3. Since Alaska joined OneWorld, there have been no big perks for MP members but we've lost things gradually instead.
If we lose the great partner awards (e.g. JAL is a good one), then what happens to the value of Alaska's miles? It was always considered more valuable BECAUSE of their excellent Partners.

It's just a precursor to what will happen. Alaska miles will be worth barely anything more than AA miles in a year or two.

AA valuation of 1.5 cents is a joke. Maybe 1.2

Looking at the Mileage Plan Award Chart page, some partner pricing is stated in absolute values, while others are indicated as "Starting at"
Is this a new development identifyingpartners with dynamic pricing? Or was this always the case?

Remember the SIN-TYO-CAN back then for 25K AS Miles along with free layovers

"Expect more variability in partner award costs" = literally double speak for dynamic pricing which they have always claimed wouldnt happen. Sigh. So disillusioned.

@lucky

Got scoop yesterday at Alaska Lounge SFO. The original rooftop lounge @ SFO that Alaska was slated to move into will now be built out for United.

United is going to take over most of T2 at SFO. That rooftop lounge will be spectacular.

Alaska moved into the legacy AA lounge as a temporary spot — they will be relocating permanently to T1 by 2025. No idea what lounge plan is.

There may well be some good news in here. Some of their partner pricing is ridiculously high right now - like on Aer Lingus. So maybe things will be evening out? Looking for a silver lining, but, honestly, I don’t see much future in CP with China’s policies starting to rule all of HK.

You mean the well known loophole that was active for years until some bloggers published it and it killed it in a few days.

BOHICA.

I agree with Janet. Why belong to Alaskas partnerships and miles program if they change more and significantly. We do not like the one world alliance already. We will wait and see bur less and less perks are available, maybe time to switch. We fly a lot!.

It will be nice to book a LA flight online instead of calling & the agent learning how to book the carrier right then & there. But yeah... Hopefully it's not too bad.

The new award pricing can't be any worse than the amount of miles required for AerLingus, Qantas or Finnair which are about twice what the same award "costs" using AA or even BA miles, not to mention Korean! I agree that Cathay, Fiji and JAL awards are great deals but the program currently lacks consistency. (BA is a whole other matter and can't get much worse when combining the airlines surcharges and the UK government's exorbitant levies!)

Being based in Canada, I've moved from AA (ExecPlat for years) to AS as my secondary OneWorld program (MVPGold tier) since AAdvantage is now a credit card based program and of course, AA has no ccs for non-Americans. I can always fall back on my primary OW program (just made BAGold through July '24) though only for non-BA flight awards. And have STARGold through AC lifetime status.

Given Alaska's recent track record for pricing partner awards outside OW, like SQ Business flights from Singapore to much of Europe (100,000 miles) and many others, I can't help but feel that very unfriendly news is on the way.
When you need to check the cash price against a prospective award something is wrong, and you know that things are out of kilter and the program has lost its value.
I expect that LATAM will come on-line with less than tempting award value, and CX redemptions will not be the same phenominal value as the good ol' days on Alaska.

I wish alaska airways would fly out of Vancouver bc canada, they lay over in seattle is a bit more than we would like.

Maybe bad news. Still the best program around, especially for...Alaskans! 22.5K miles gets me to CDG, MXP, MAD or FRA, from ANC!
The flight attendants are friendly and professional, and the miles earning opportunities...cc, sub, cell phone, and grocery store...make it easy.

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I am trying to use my Alaska miles to book round trip first class or business flights to German via British Airways. I did so pre-COVID many times without problem. So far, first claim is available at all and the business class is always "mixed seating" which means the transcontinental flight is economy while the short London to Munich flight is business, but they demand full business class mileage to book even this.
Question: Is there a better time to try to book first or business class using Alaska miles with British. I plan to travel in May, 2023. Thank you.

In Oct 2022 I tried to book a trip on American Airlines using my Alaska Air miles for a 2023 departure. AA had 40 scheduled flights going JAX-HNL on the day I wanted to travel but none of them were available to book with Alaska miles. If I selected an alternate date +/- a few days, I could only book the AA flights that arrived one day after departure. I tried to book another shorter domestic AA flight using my Alaska miles and found only the longest, most inconvenient AA flights could be booked with my Alaska miles. I feel totally screwed. In 2020 and 2021 my Alaska miles had a lot more value for booking AA flights. I live in Florida so I joined Alaska Air based on the ability to book on partner airline American.

Hmm, at least one error it on the new chart (or perhaps a sign of things to come). CX premium economy is supposed to cost 35k from North America to Asia and the new chart has it listed at 40k. I confirmed CX awards are still bookable at 35k for time being.