Alaska Airlines has just announced its newest airline partner, and it’s one that I’m pretty excited about (thanks to @mileagerunner72 for flagging this)!
In this post:
Philippine Airlines added as Alaska Mileage Plan partner
Alaska Airlines has announced a new partnership with Philippine Airlines, representing the Seattle-based carrier’s 32nd global airline partner. The partnership will go live in the coming months, at which point Alaska customers will be able to book Philippine Airlines flights directly through Alaska’s website and mobile app, and Mileage Plan members will be able to earn and redeem Mileage Plan miles for Philippine Airlines flights.
Philippine Airlines offers a variety of flight options between Alaska’s hubs and Manila (MNL). The airline flies 14x weekly to Los Angeles (LAX), 7x weekly to San Francisco (SFO), 5x weekly to Honolulu (HNL), and 3x weekly to Seattle (SEA). From Manila, passengers can connect to all kinds of other destinations, especially within Asia.
Here’s how Brett Catlin, Alaska’s VP of Loyalty, Alliances, and Sales, describes this:
“Philippine Airlines is a terrific addition to our roster of global airlines offering world-class service and amenities. We’re excited to make this announcement as we mark the beginning of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. The large Filipino communities living in Hawaii, California and Washington state can travel on Philippine Airlines long-haul, widebody aircraft and soon earn valuable Mileage Plan miles on their transpacific journeys.”
I’m delighted to see this new partnership!
While Alaska belongs to the oneworld alliance nowadays, one thing I love about the carrier is how it sees value in a broad range of airline partnerships as part of the overall appeal of its loyalty program. Mileage Plan punches way above its weight for a carrier of Alaska’s size. Even before the airline joined oneworld and acquired Hawaiian, Alaska had unique partnerships with a variety of airlines.
This is an especially cool partnership, since currently Philippine Airlines doesn’t have any loyalty partnerships in North America. So this will be a practical way to redeem miles for travel on the airline, and also a good option for crediting miles from revenue tickets.
There’s a lot of overlap between Alaska’s hubs and focus cities, and Philippine Airlines’ gateways in North America.
Based on Alaska’s distance based award chart covering Asia, you can expect that a transpacific business class award on Philippine Airlines will cost 75,000 to 85,000 miles one-way.
I look forward to this option, and hopefully award availability is decent. I’ve reviewed Philippine Airlines’ A350 business class, and it’s a solid experience, but nothing amazing. The airline will also eventually acquire A350-1000s, which should feature a new onboard product.
Bottom line
Alaska is adding Philippine Airlines as its newest airline partner, which is an opportunity to earn and redeem miles. This partnership should be live in the coming months, so the only bad news is that we’ll have to be patient. I’d consider this to be a very nice value-add for the program, given Philippine Airlines’ lack of alliance membership, and lack of North America airline partners.
What do you make of Alaska partnering with Philippine Airlines?
I'll believe this when I see it. After all, Porter redemptions still aren't possible. Alaska is terrible at integrating new partnerships.
If this partnership has decent availability then it will mark somewhat of a blow to UA and to ANA, JAL, Singapore, Cathay, and the Taiwanese carriers. Currently if you want to fly direct to the Philippines with points you have to fly UA and pay their exorbitant dynamic rates for business class awards. Otherwise you generally have to combine awards and fly through Singapore, Japan (good luck finding TPAC availability), Taipei, Seoul, or Honolulu, use...
If this partnership has decent availability then it will mark somewhat of a blow to UA and to ANA, JAL, Singapore, Cathay, and the Taiwanese carriers. Currently if you want to fly direct to the Philippines with points you have to fly UA and pay their exorbitant dynamic rates for business class awards. Otherwise you generally have to combine awards and fly through Singapore, Japan (good luck finding TPAC availability), Taipei, Seoul, or Honolulu, use a very difficult to plan ANA round-the-world ticket (soon to disappear anyway), or route or reposition through Canada (where Air Canada business class awards are pricey but premium economy award prices are somewhat decent if you can find the low end of the dynamic pricing and are willing to deal with the tight premium economy configuration).
Pal j is relatively cheap so not a great partner to redeem but some values for earning
I bet the J redemption rates are going to be as bad capacity wise as what happened when they announced the tie-in with Starlux.S
Does AA codeshare with PAL from NRT-MNL/CEB still?
I would temper my expectations on their upcoming product. I can see the exact same cabin as their A359. Maybe improved finishes and trim along with a door, but that's about it.
And for the passengers in the back, they'll be the first full-service carrier to offer 3-4-3 on the A350 assuming their plans haven't changed which I can imagine would be brutal especially on those ultra-long haul flights.
This makes sense. I can see PR starting MNL to SAN with this news. Would be good to get feed on the SAN end with AS.
Routings like AUS-SAN-MNL or TPQ-SAN-MNL Will be great.
We need another flight to Asia from SAN. This can open up more one stop access to Southeast Asia from SAN.
"We need another flight to Asia from SAN."
Correction, you WANT another flight to Asia from SAN.
The traffic volume is definitely there, but fares-paid outside of Tokyo aren't high at all, and much of the traffic will happily drive to LAX or connect via San Francisco, to save a few bucks. That's not very conducive to luring more Asian nonstops.
It's pretty telling, when Starlux (for example) would rather be the 4th wheel...
"We need another flight to Asia from SAN."
Correction, you WANT another flight to Asia from SAN.
The traffic volume is definitely there, but fares-paid outside of Tokyo aren't high at all, and much of the traffic will happily drive to LAX or connect via San Francisco, to save a few bucks. That's not very conducive to luring more Asian nonstops.
It's pretty telling, when Starlux (for example) would rather be the 4th wheel in Seattle, and 2nd fiddle in Ontario (as its alternatives to LAX and SFO) than enter San Diego. The fares in SAN are just comparative garbage, unfortunately.
Well there is a significant Filipino diaspora in San Diego, but I'm not sure it justifies a non-stop flight.
There are more desirable destinations such as a return to Las Vegas and Chicago. And from what I've read, Houston is in the cards.
The PR soft product is excellent. PR needs to improve their 2-3-2 business class configuration on the 777s for me to fly PR business class. But I welcome more options to fly to Asia from the west coast.
Have to keep in mind they typically price their business class quite a bit lower than more competitive products like SQ / CX
While it's cool that Alaska is adding another partner, I wish Alaska was better about negotiating some reciprocal elite benefits with these non-oneworld partners. Even if it is only Alaska (and not partner) lounge access and checked luggage benefits...
Philippines also flies from JFK, which opens up a potentially exciting redemption opportunity.
And YYZ/YVR too.
Their schedules aren't suited for Asia connections in the way TPE is, but there's strong point to point demand for US and MNL anyhow.
Yes and 85K is an attractive price for that nonstop. Curious what the availability will be like though..