Well this is a bit of a surprise. As of July 1st 2019, El Al passengers will have the option to credit flown miles to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, rather than El Al's own Matmid frequent flyer program. For their part, Alaska is touting El Al as a new option for Mileage Plan members with…
Continue reading: El Al Airlines Added As Alaska Mileage Plan Partner
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If only AS could find a way to ever honestly finish creating partnerships with SQ and EI that were actually useful (or even offer meaningful award availability in J on QF, or FJ) then this might mean anything. Aside from a VERY few people banking miles more conveniently, this is useless.
(Can't wait to watch all the excited commentary by n00bs about redeeming AS miles on El Al any time soon).
Alaska needs to fix their broken award search engine before adding any new partners!
The page went 404 pretty quick. Premature announcement ala Aer Lingus partnership
@Kalboz
I hope not. I believe the day when AA is able to make award redemptions for ALL its partners will be the same day for AA to introduce dynamic pricing on all award redemptions, same applies to AS
I never understood why AA didn't renew its loyalty partnership with LY after cancelling both that and code sharing shortly after the US merger, presumably due to the PHL-TLV route voiding the benefit of the arrangement. Seems like a no-brainer given that AA has no service to TLV anymore, a gap among the US big three. For some reason, they code share now only on routes via European hubs and AA domestic flights, but not on LY's direct US flights. And no mileage partnership.
Can someone shed light on this mystery?
@V:
It was working earlier. Someone on FlyerTalk (ya know, where bloggers ste-I mean, find their source material) posted screenshots.
Looks like the intern for the AS website did something a bit early. Whoopsadoodle!
I too found the AA cessation of LY partnership weird. I assume it was because of the PHL-TLV route but now that that is gone, they should reconsider LY.
This is terrific news for those of us who visit the holy land. I just can’t wait to be able to redeem on LY with AS miles (oh yeah and Aer Lingus and Singapore).
As others have reported, page is no longer available on Alaska's website.
If this chart ends up being correct, that's great news of course.
Great News! El Al has recently announced new service to Vegas, Chicago and Fort Lauderdale. I predict Seattle service in the next wave of new destinations and a new partnership with Alaska. Reciprocal Frequent Flyer Programs is the first step to this.
Correction! El Al has recently announced Chicago, San Francisco, Vegas and Orlando
While El Al is useful as a nonstop to Tel Aviv from US, the airline and TLV is hardly useful as a global carrier/hub. Very few destinations east of Israel and zero use for travelling within the Middle East. Obviously you're not going to fly all the way to Israel to backtrack into Europe from USA either.
Nice niche airline for Holy Land travelers but not very useful as a global people mover.
Not surprised by lack of formal alliance
Travel with El Al improved enormously with the introduction of
787 9 aircraft versus the vintage planes I have ridden previously.
I actually slept 5 hours of the 11 plus hour mia tlv journey gasp in economy!
Tov maod.
great option for Cairo and Nairobi, even Johannesburg connections. niche but nice add for AS when this completes in a few years. way more flights than the Finnair partnership.