Alaska Mileage Plan’s Global Getaways Award Sale

We recently saw the Alaska Mileage Plan program overhauled, with all-new redemption rates for award travel. As part of this, Alaska Airlines is introducing Global Getaways, a quarterly promotion offering discounted award travel, with savings of up to 50%. In some cases the discount will be on a specific partner airline, while in other cases it will be on specific routes or to specific destinations.

The program has just unveiled the details of its first Global Getaways offer…

Save on Mileage Plan awards to beach destinations

For the first Alaska Mileage Plan Global Getaways promotion, you can save up to 50% on award travel to select destinations:

• This is valid for bookings made throughout April 2024
• This is valid for travel in September through November 2024
• This is valid specifically for redemptions in economy and premium economy, and not for redemptions in business class or first class
• You can receive discounts as long as you’re traveling to one of the eligible destinations, as it doesn’t matter where you’re originating or which airline you’re flying

The theme for the first Global Getaways promotion is “exotic, sunny beach escapes.” So with this sale, you can save on one-way redemptions with any of Alaska’s partner airlines to the following destinations:

• Tahiti, French Polynesia: now starting at 20,000 miles instead of 30,000 miles
• Nadi, Fiji: now starting at 20,000 miles instead of 37,500 miles
• Nassau, Bahamas: now starting at 15,000 miles instead of 17,500 miles
• Zanzibar, Tanzania: now starting at 30,000 miles instead of 42,500 miles
• Malé, Maldives: now starting at 30,000 miles instead of 42,500 miles
• Bali/Denpasar, Indonesia: now starting at 30,000 miles instead of 42,500 miles

My take on Alaska’s first Global Getaways promotion

I very much appreciate Alaska Mileage Plan’s creativity with this new quarterly promotion, as nowadays it’s pretty rare to see programs offer partner award sales. Now, admittedly I wish there weren’t quite as many restrictions in terms of the booking period, travel period, the class of service limitations, and the one-way discount, but still, there will be value here for many, and it’s better than nothing.

For example, being able to redeem just 20,000 miles for Fiji Airways economy from Los Angeles to Nadi is quite a good deal.

I’d say this is a great start to this promotion, and I’m curious to see how the Global Getaways concept evolves over time. This is basically Alaska’s version of Air France-KLM Flying Blue Promo Rewards or Singapore KrisFlyer Spontaneous Escapes, except the promotion is quarterly (rather than monthly), and it applies for travel on partner airlines (rather than for travel on the program’s airline).

Bottom line

Alaska Mileage Plan has launched its new Global Getaways promotion, which is a quarterly redemption deal offering up to a 50% discount on awards. To kick this off, you can save miles on economy and premium economy tickets to sunny destinations, for bookings in April, and for travel in September through November.

While this won’t be useful for everyone, I imagine some people will get significant value from this.

What do you make of Alaska’s Global Getaways promotion?