Alaska Airlines is the best frequent flyer program in the US. Now that all the competition has gone revenue based, their Mileage Plan program shines like a star. They have generous earning rates, great award partners, and best of all, their redemption rates are fantastic. In February, I'm looking at recording a new Economy Week…
Continue reading: One Of My Best Economy Class Award Redemptions Ever
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
off topic: someone willing to buy (free) Starbucks for me in USA so I can get to gold? (egift card number account)
@Daniel-I’m sure you know but there are always great deals on the mileage run forums on FlyerTalk most involve some longer routing and there all broken down by airline
Maybe I was not clear enough. sorry. I'm currently in Europe so not able to buy coffee in US Starbucks. So no gold. If someone would buy coffee on my account I would still get gold. You would get free coffee. (only once off course)
You can't really use a one way ticket price for comparison. They are often jacked up, even beyond the price of a round trip!
Really wish there was a way to filter out these lower quality posts.
Misleading title, picture, and comparison with one-way price. Not even a great use of Alaska miles.
@Jeff: If you only need a one way ticket, I don't see any problem with the comparison.
I recently did something similar and got a last-minute ticket from Paris to JFK. AA award space is hard to find, but you can find good values if you look in the right spaces at the right times.
Hi Daniel, did you say you match MVP Gold from British Airways status? As far as I know, they don't match British Airways status, please correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks
I think my best award ticket was a multi-city itinerary from BOI-EYW, then MCO-BOI for about 40k Skymiles. Actual ticket price was about $800.
The absolute best miles redemption I had was when I used American Airline miles to fly roundtrip from LAX to CDG on Air Tahiti Nui. It was just before American changed their program in 2015. Managed to use 40,000 miles for a trip that April (now it's high season) but received 10% back due to my card so I only used 36,000 roundtrip.
Unfortunately, Air Tahiti flights don't show up in the portal, so you have to call American directly for availability.
So AS went against their no matches for foreign FF programs?
The award for off peak Europe goes up to 22,500 in 2018
@Jack Thanks so much for the tip! I know about it but usually spend time in the Premium Deals thread. I'll have a look around and see if I can find something good!
@Jeff I just added it as a point of comparison, but said that I clearly wouldn't consider buying it for that price. If the price had been more reasonable (approx. $500), then I would have got 2.26 cents per point!
@JL There is a way. Just check for the author and if it says Daniel, you're free not to click it. Don't know why you keep coming back if you can't stand my posts 🙂
@Tu I've read mixed reports. Officially, they only match US airlines but given a compelling reason (i.e. high earning rates or spend) they might be willing to match a foreign status.
Have to throw this in. Redeemed 70,000 Starwood points for 2 nights at St. Regis in NYC (regular room going for $1000 a night that weekend). Thought 2.9 cents per point was pretty good.
Got to the hotel and they upgraded us to a Fifth Avenue Suite (only SPG gold. Causually mentioned upgrade and they said they'd see whats available. Imagine our shock walking into that suite). That room was going for $6,000 a night that weekend.
17 cents per point!
If you add a throw-away trip to that one-way ticket, the cash price would probably be lower. It's really unfair comparison for miles vs. cash.
If you need to get from Spain to California one way then surely LEVEL or Norweigan cash flights would be better comparisons?
Cool thing about getting Starbucks gold is that you can status to other Coffee chains or fast food. I got McDonald's Silver, Wendy's Dave Platinum and Peet's Ruby all from buying just one cup of Starbucks coffee.
Daniel, if you need to get from Europe to SFO, flights in AA (or BA) economy from ARN or GOT are incredibly cheap. Usually around $400 r/t. If you only need one-way now, use the return later or just throw it away.
@eric I gotchu man. I'll be going to starbs pretty soon.
Give me some way to contact you
I got a very similar redemption. AA Economy for 20K Alaska miles from Honolulu to London Heathrow with, thanks to Alaska's amazing one way award stopover policy, a 13 day stopover in LAX.
20K AS + $23.70 T/F versus $3,300 cash ? Easy choice and I'm glad I got this before the partnership devaluation.
Ironic how Virgin America was charging 20K AS miles just to get from HNL to LAX when AA, at the time, could get me to Europe for the same amount ?