Alaska Mileage Plan has added a new restriction on award tickets, as flagged by LoyaltyLobby, though it seems almost unenforceable. The timing of this coincides with the revamp the program is currently undergoing.
In this post:
Alaska limits award ticket frequent flyer benefits
When you go to Alaska Airlines’ webpage with award charts and click on the general terms & conditions section, you’ll see the following new restriction:
When redeeming miles for an award ticket from Alaska Mileage Plan account, customer cannot enter another airline’s frequent flyer number and is thus ineligible for benefits from another program.
In other words, if you redeem Alaska Mileage Plan miles, you can’t then swap in your American AAdvantage number on a reservation, with an account that has oneworld Emerald or oneworld Sapphire status. This could be useful if you’re trying to take advantage of alliance perks, whether it’s oneworld lounge access, the ability to assign a seat at no cost, an extra baggage allowance, etc.
This new policy counters the industry norm, as I’ve never heard of another airline not letting you switch out frequent flyer numbers based on the airline through which you ticket an award (though there are some other situations where you can’t switch your frequent flyer number, as I’ll outline below).
For that matter, I don’t see how this rule is at all enforceable. Yes, it’s easy enough to enforce this if you’re actually flying with Alaska, but this rule also seems to apply when traveling on partner airlines. I can’t imagine an airline like British Airways or Qatar Airways wouldn’t let you swap your number, just because Alaska has this policy, as they probably wouldn’t even be aware of it.
I’m not sure what to make of this policy
I find this new policy from Alaska Airlines to be strange, especially as I don’t even understand the economic incentive for the airline to impose this.
It’s my understanding that if you have oneworld elite status and you access a lounge, the airline with which you have status pays for lounge access, rather than the airline with which you’re actually flying (let alone the airline that ticketed your reservation). So if you book an award through Alaska Mileage Plan but have a different carrier’s frequent flyer number on the reservation (where you have elite status), Alaska shouldn’t be on the hook for that cost.
Now, in fairness, some other programs do have restrictions regarding changing frequent flyer numbers, but in more logical ways. For example, American AAdvantage has the following restriction:
You cannot accrue partner airline miles with your partner frequent flyer number if you have already used your AAdvantage number to obtain any AAdvantage Rewards and Benefits such as First or Business Class upgrades, baggage fee waivers, priority boarding, access to Preferred seats or complimentary access to Preferred / Main Cabin Extra seats.
Now, that makes perfect sense. You can’t use your AAdvantage Executive Platinum status to score a complimentary first class upgrade, and then credit your flight to a different frequent flyer program. But that’s very different than what’s happening at Alaska Mileage Plan, which is saying that you can’t switch your frequent flyer number even if you’re not taking advantage of any Alaska elite benefits.
I’m not sure what exactly the logic is for that policy, but Alaska seems to be alone with having such restrictions, at least within the oneworld alliance. I’m not sure if the airline is confused about oneworld membership, if I’m confused, or what.
Bottom line
When redeeming Alaska Mileage Plan miles for an award ticket, you can no longer enter another carrier’s frequent flyer number on the reservation to take advantage of elite perks. That applies whether traveling on Alaska or a partner airline. At least that’s what the terms suggest, though it’s anyone’s guess whether this will be enforced.
What do you make of this new Alaska Mileage Plan redemption restriction?
I ran into this last week. Booked a flight from Maui to San Diego using Alaska miles. I called to ask them to use my AAdvantage number instead of Alaska frequent flier so I could access Ruby benefits and they would not let me do it.
This is a idiotic policy on the part of AS, with no benefit to them. On the contrary, it will encourage those who accumulate miles and status on AS as well as another OW carrier, to rethink what they are doing. I had both AS and BA status for awhile, but for several reasons (a couple of years ago) decided to concentrate all of my loyalty activity on BA, foregoing the occasional free domestic upgrade...
This is a idiotic policy on the part of AS, with no benefit to them. On the contrary, it will encourage those who accumulate miles and status on AS as well as another OW carrier, to rethink what they are doing. I had both AS and BA status for awhile, but for several reasons (a couple of years ago) decided to concentrate all of my loyalty activity on BA, foregoing the occasional free domestic upgrade from AS, but getting much more from BA in return. I'll have exhausted all of my remaining AS miles in another year or so, at which point I will no longer care about asinine AS policies like this one.
My solution is to never use AS miles on AS travel, other than for tickets in First Class; otherwise, I'm just another commoner even though I have BA gold/OW emerald status. If using AS miles for BA travel, I've been able to get BA to change my FF number in the reservation, which may be easier being a BA gold member. Going forward, all my accumulating miles are going into Avios or Chase Ultimate Rewards.
I've never tried with Alaska airlines issued award tickets. But I've done it with AA flights booked with BA avíos. Once in a while I've run into an issue where an AA agent won't do it. But I call later and another agent does. In my case, it's convenient to add AA PLT status to book main cabin extra seats and also for free checked bags.
Working at American 35 years. You will see Alaska Airlines become more & more like American because of Oneworld. And don’t think that they aren’t behind the Alaska/Hawaiian merger. American will get a Pacific division one way or another no matter what size. It’s the American Way.
More AS trying to be AA? Not good. This actively diminishes the experience...and for what?
This doesn't seem new, it's always been against terms of service to combine benefits from multiple programs.
Pretty simple work around... I did not book the ticket for me, I booked it for my twin brother... who happens to have the same birthday as me, the same name as me, but a different FF number.
Done and done.
This will be in line with AS's lounge access terms, which is different from my experience with other oneworld airlines', too.
"... all guests must include their eligible frequent flyer number on their reservation prior to check-in to access the lounge. oneworld® frequent flyer membership cards do not grant access to the lounge and the frequent flyer number on the reservation will determine whether a member is eligible for access." (https://www.alaskaair.com/content/airport-lounge/policies-and-rules)
However, I also do...
This will be in line with AS's lounge access terms, which is different from my experience with other oneworld airlines', too.
"... all guests must include their eligible frequent flyer number on their reservation prior to check-in to access the lounge. oneworld® frequent flyer membership cards do not grant access to the lounge and the frequent flyer number on the reservation will determine whether a member is eligible for access." (https://www.alaskaair.com/content/airport-lounge/policies-and-rules)
However, I also do not see how AS can stop you from changing to another FFP at gate after you have used the lounge.
Basically Alaska is saying "If you book a flight on a partner using Alaska miles, you cannot get elite benefits because it comes out of our pocket".
Alaska stock has struggled and there is pressure for them to improve margins. It's also why they started the silly $5 a month subscription program.
It does not come out of AS's pocket...
Interestingly, I just flew a segment on AA booked with AS miles yesterday. After booking, I messaged AS to swap in my AA FFN, which they happily did. And then I got upgraded on AA and earned AA miles/LPs as a revenue J ticket.
In oneworld the operating carrier pays for lounge access so when flying on AS metal AS would be paying for the non-AS-status passenger’s lounge access (sometimes, though rarely given AS’s network, paying another lounge more than $100 for that passenger’s access). In Star Alliance the carry the passenger has status with has to pay, so I imagine a carrier would be happy to have a pax use another carrier’s FF number.
@Lucky, this is my understanding, too, based on past conversations with lounge receptionists. I think you mistakened the *A policy for that of oneworld.
Several weeks ago I messaged AS to add my AA ff# to a partner award. I was told this was against policy. I scoffed & thought maybe I had a new agent since I use chat frequently to do this. Just used the partners website to make the switch (QR) during OLCI or at physical check in (JL) when they needed to see my passport on another reservation. It's a bit of hassle compared to chatting right after booking but no crazy task.
@Sam a lot more of a pain when you're using Alaska miles to fly on Alaska though! I often redeem Alaska miles for trips up and down the west coast when fares get very expensive and it's annoying that they make it hard to utilize my American status.
I got sucked in to their credit card once for the 60K bonus then realizing that a one-way so called first class ticket HNl to San Jose for two was 110K, so I had to buy more miles. Besides the fact that Alaska has many flights from HNL to the mainland and no lounge access for first class in HNL. Not a fan. Aloha
That's kind of your fault for not doing research before hand though, no?
KE wouldn't allow this either; I booked a redemption on KE mileage but a DM with DL. The KE website seemed to initially allow me to use my Skymiles number after the fact but it always errored out, as their UI is terrible. KE CS said they wouldn't allow it (for me anyway) saying that's against policy. Fun!
Back when I bothered to acquire airline status, there were a few airline systems that let you access your PNR and make changes, even when booked/operated by someone else entirely (e.g., book through BA, use AY to swap to AA number, get elite benefits). Is this no longer possible? But, yeah, I don't understand the logic as it wouldn't cost them any money if you swapped out your ff number. I can only think that...
Back when I bothered to acquire airline status, there were a few airline systems that let you access your PNR and make changes, even when booked/operated by someone else entirely (e.g., book through BA, use AY to swap to AA number, get elite benefits). Is this no longer possible? But, yeah, I don't understand the logic as it wouldn't cost them any money if you swapped out your ff number. I can only think that this may be something AA (or other partners) have complained about? "Hey, too many folks are using your credit card for miles, but then we get dinged for lounge access on award tix."
Some sky team airlines are a bit weird about this.
Wouldnt let us into the lounge as the airline with status wasnt the airline the points were being credited to.
This has been the de facto policy for booking awards on the web for Alaska for quite some time. You can get around it on online check-in on the Alaska app though (or at least you could as of a few weeks ago), where there is step in the check-in flow that lets you edit your frequent flyer information.
My experience with redeeming benefits earned through status with one airline when flying an alliance partner have been hit or miss. Within oneworld, not so much (easily accessed Galleries Lounge at LHR when using AA miles to fly BA, as an AA Platinum status member). On Star Alliance, though, I was using Aeroplan miles to fly Air Canada while a United Gold status member and had to persuade the United Club welcome desk that I was allowed in.
2 things:
1) You can't enforce this is you are redeeming for a family member...as it's not a requirement that they have an Alaska number.
2) You can book the award ticket for 'someone else' who shares your name but has an alternative frequent flyer number.
Problem solved. Been doing this for years with BA awards for AA flights.
Instead of tightening stupid rules on FF programs, Alaska should focus on tightening bolts on their airplanes
Isn’t this similar to the American policy, which you’ve covered?
Blog post titled: News To Me: American Restricts Elite Benefits On Partner Award Tickets.
@ Charles -- Good point. But that seemed to only apply briefly, and has since been removed from the terms & conditions. I'm curious what the motivation was there as well...
Same with Emirates: when booking an award ticket through Qantas, it is not allowed to assign an Emirates Skywards number (i.e. for free in-flight Wi-Fi in first class - one has to purchase it onboard).