Back in 2019, Alaska Airlines and EL AL launched a partnership. We had been promised all along that we’d eventually get reciprocal mileage redemptions, and that feature is finally live.
Continue reading: You Can Now Redeem Alaska Miles On EL AL
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I am finding it harder and harder to be excited about Alaska miles. I had been traveling almost weekly on Alaska for work from SFO to Seattle and SoCal until the Pandemic. I can't seem to find any worthwhile redemptions to anywhere remotely fun.
Just booked J on JAL for a March flight ORD-HND, then onward to BKK out of NRT five days later, for 65,000 miles...ticket is pricing out at close to $4,700 currently. For July, I'm holding a J ticket on Cathay ORD-HKG, then onward to BKK 4 days later, that cost me 50,000 miles and is pricing out at about $4,500. Both are refundable (well, minus the $12.50 one way partner booking fee AS charges...) and the fares I've quoted here are not, so if you can find these types of awards, Mileage Plan is hard to beat...but it's definitely getting harder and harder to find these.
When did you book the CX flight? Cause I haven't seen any J availability FROM CX in a very long time.
@Luis - about a month ago. I check frequently to see what pops up as in July I have a lot of flexibility, and I appear to have gotten lucky...a few days prior, it was not available. Same thing with the JAL flights. ORD doesn't often have great availability, so when I saw these, I jumped on them. I also saw an ORD-SGN itinerary available in J on JAL for early March as well...two days later, it was gone. One thing that has helped me is doing a layover - I will often see no availability to South East Asia in J, but if I do two separate leg searches, I'll find availability and can piece it together as a multi stop itinerary.
@Ralph4878 That's amazing. I haven't been nearly as lucky. Since my wife has gone back to work and the kids are in real school (hint, grades with a number and not pre-k/day care) and I switched jobs, my travel has slowed down. I have accrued millions of hotel points across Hyatt/Marriott/IHG/Hilton/Choice and a few more million across AMEX/Cap1/Citi/Chase in addition to the 400k Alaska and 220k Delta. I am itching to burn, but flexibility just isn't there for me right now. Maybe I'll look to join you in Asia this summer.
There's usually a LOT of intra-Asia availability with Mileage Plan...so if you can get over there on a cheaper ticket and want to hop around, CX J availability throughout the region is usually plentiful @ 25,000 miles (with a free stopover in HKG).