On Thursday I wrote a post entitled "Are Emirates First Class Redemptions Using Alaska Miles Going Away?" Basically Alaska Mileage Plan doesn't seem to have access to any Emirates first class award availability for travel after March 28, 2015. Travel in Emirates first class is one of my favorite uses of Alaska Mileage Plan miles,…
Continue reading: Official Statement From Alaska About Emirates Award Availability
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Seems that these a lot of reaching out going on lately. Whatever happened to good old fashioned contacting or talking to people?
iirc, AS shows F inventory available if EK inventory shows two F seats available. So in theory, if I find two F seats available using EK search for dates after end of March, I should be available to call AS and book it ?
Stall tactic on the part of AS. I'm not expecting good news but hope that I'm wrong.
Thx for this Ben! I think I've read a whole lot more trip reports on EK F from AS miles than AS F on EK miles. 😉 I hope AS will fix this soon!
Nice job of seeking some claritifcation Lucky. Hopefully all the friggin' hypocrites who whined in the comments section of the last couple of posts on this topic about how the world was coming to an end because their "private trick" was published by you will go away now.
@Stephan - "Hopefully all the friggin’ hypocrites who whined in the comments section of the last couple of posts on this topic about how the world was coming to an end because their “private trick” was published by you will go away now."
They won't. They'll just find something else to whine about.
Ben, thanks for the updates!
Can you use AS miles to book a 5th Freedom flight on EK?
@ Steve -- Which route? They only publish award charts in some regions, so you can't book routings like SYD/MEL-AKL.
I hope they Fix this. Finally the bloggers serve a real purpose other than to fatten up their own wallets with CC sign up commissions. I've been told time and time again for nearly 2 years by AS IT that the space on EF was not the same as that EK made available to them. Now a total 180
Wow, kudos to AS responding and admitting a mistake. Maybe I am jaded but I don't see UA or Dl dealing with it in that way.
It all depends on the agent you get. Most of them are either unwilling to help you or don't know how to. Luckily, after a few tries, I ran into one who knew how to and was willing to help - and found me FCs. Not one, but three spread across April-August . Looks like FCs are widely available ... Multiple flights were open from west coast.
Any updates on the situation? I've admittedly not kept up on it since your original articles.
Thanks!
Hi Lucky,
Is this still an issue? I'm planning an aspirational BLR-DXB-SFO award in 2016 on EK with Alaska miles. Looks like there is availability in March 2016 (on Alaska's site). But from some of your posts, this seems to be a rocky issue. Just wondering if should even bother accumulating Alaska miles at all if this seems to be going away...
Thanks,
Arun.
@ Arun -- Nope, not an issue anymore. See here:
https://onemileatatime.com/emirates-first-class-awards-using-alaska-miles-are-back/