While Alaska Airlines joined the oneworld alliance as of March 2021, the airline hasn’t yet rolled out award redemptions on all oneworld partners. For now the airline is maintaining separate award charts for each airline partner, and redemptions are slowly being added. In recent months we’ve seen Alaska add awards on Iberia and Qatar Airways, and we can now add another redemption partner to the list — Royal Air Maroc.
In this post:
Mileage Plan redemption rates on Royal Air Maroc
Alaska Mileage Plan has quietly added Royal Air Maroc as an award redemption partner. For those not familiar, Royal Air Maroc is Morocco’s national carrier, and has a fleet of just over 50 aircraft. The airline primarily operates flights within Africa, and to Europe, the Middle East, and North America (United States destinations include Miami, New York, and Washington).
Here are the Alaska Mileage Plan saver level one-way award costs for travel on Royal Air Maroc in eligible regions:
- North America to Africa costs 50,000 miles in economy, 100,000 miles in business class
- North America to Europe costs 60,000 miles in economy, 120,000 miles in business class
- North America to Middle East costs 65,000 miles in economy, 150,000 miles in business class
- Africa to Europe costs 17,500 miles in economy, 35,000 miles in business class
- Africa to Middle East costs 32,500 miles in economy, 70,000 miles in business class
- Africa to Africa costs 20,000 miles in economy, 45,000 miles in business class
A couple of further things to note:
- When traveling long haul between regions, stopovers in Morocco are allowed
- There are no fuel surcharges on Royal Air Maroc award redemptions
These redemption rates are spectacularly bad
Let’s first talk specifically about these redemption rates — they’re simply awful. Keep in mind Morocco isn’t very far from the United States, so a New York to Casablanca flight takes just over six hours (similar to a New York to London flight).
100,000 miles for a one-way business class ticket from the United States to Morocco, seriously? And then if you want to tag on a flight to Europe (which in some cases is just an hour or two), that bumps the price to 120,000 miles one-way?
Keep in mind that you can also redeem American AAdvantage miles for travel on Royal Air Maroc, and the one-way prices are significantly lower. You can fly business class from the United States to Morocco or Europe for just 57,500 miles (vs. 100,000-125,000 miles). The difference here is massive.
And this gets at a bigger issue with Alaska Mileage Plan — it’s time for me to downgrade my valuation of these miles. Alaska has some incredible niche redemption opportunities, including on Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, Qantas, etc. The premium cabin redemption rates are the best in the industry, and on top of that you can have free stopovers.
Unfortunately those redemptions are largely off bounds. I’m not confident I’ll be able to enter Hong Kong in the next decade without an extended quarantine, and Japan and Australia remain closed to foreigners without quarantine (though I expect this will change in the coming months).
More importantly, for all the redemptions we’ve recently seen added (including on Iberia, Qatar Airways, and Royal Air Maroc), redemption rates have been significantly worse than through American AAdvantage. In some cases the math could still work out for those who really value a stopover, but Alaska Mileage Plan simply isn’t the slam dunk program that it used to be in terms of value.
The pricing imbalance of Mileage Plan is simply puzzling nowadays. You could fly one-way first class on Cathay Pacific from the United States to Asia for just 70,000 miles, less than half of the cost of a one-way Royal Air Maroc business class award from the United States to the Middle East.
While I love the Mileage Plan program in general and respect how the airline hasn’t followed peers to a full revenue based program, at this point the pricing needs a reality check, in my opinion.
Bottom line
Alaska Mileage Plan has added awards on Royal Air Maroc, and these flights can be booked on alaskaair.com. While it’s great to see Alaska continuing to add oneworld partner redemptions, the value proposition here is horrible, and that’s concerning.
While Mileage Plan has some incredible award pricing for its oldest airline partners, all the additions we’ve seen recently haven’t had good pricing at all. That doesn’t make me confident about the program’s future pricing.
What do you make of Alaska’s redemption rates on Royal Air Maroc?
I agree that it is no longer a good program.
Planning to return from Maldives in March I managed to get a flight from Columbo via HKG on Cathay for 62,000 miles which was a good deal (however because of telephone only booking there was an extra non-refundable booking charge of $55 USD). However with HK closed that's now no longer an option. So will return from MLE on Qatar for 70,000 AA miles.
...I agree that it is no longer a good program.
Planning to return from Maldives in March I managed to get a flight from Columbo via HKG on Cathay for 62,000 miles which was a good deal (however because of telephone only booking there was an extra non-refundable booking charge of $55 USD). However with HK closed that's now no longer an option. So will return from MLE on Qatar for 70,000 AA miles.
AS wanted something in the range of 150,000 miles for the same return flight.
The ONLY advantage of AS is that IF you can get a flight at a reasonable price that can be routed with a stopover then it can be a really good deal. Unfortunately they stopped doing the stopover in Asia and we flew Manila to Bali via Singapore and could not stop over.
The other redemption problem with AS is that only one carrier can be booked per trip (+ AS connection). That really limits the options for travel itineraries.
Anchorage to Europe? 22.5K miles, 57K in Business on Alaska, spectacularly good...and after 10 grueling hours with rude Lufthansa FAs, bad food, and an aging, cramped cattle car of a plane, the switch for the final leg to a sleek Alaska jet with friendly staff was life saving.
I am reminded of the massive pre-emptive blow which was the hike in miles for Emirates awards a few years ago. Went from hero to zero overnight. MP has not been forgiven over that.
This time with RAM they are not bothering with any foreplay.
I would be interested to hear MPs side of the story. Is it (as with Emirates) "they made us do it...", or a straight revenue grab?
Speaking...
I am reminded of the massive pre-emptive blow which was the hike in miles for Emirates awards a few years ago. Went from hero to zero overnight. MP has not been forgiven over that.
This time with RAM they are not bothering with any foreplay.
I would be interested to hear MPs side of the story. Is it (as with Emirates) "they made us do it...", or a straight revenue grab?
Speaking with a reservations agent at the time they commented that they were no longer getting any enquiries or bookings for Emirates awards. I'm guessing same will happen with RAM awards.
Flying RAM has never been on my bucket list, as the experience does not rate highly according to reviews.
London / Lagos is pricing at 35k in J which is pretty good, but with a $353 fee!
Ridiculous award rates .....
"Spectacularly bad" is the perfect way to put it. Having AS miles be 1:1 with AA alone would be a huge devaluation of the program yet but having the program be worse than AA is a giant red flag for any AS elite.
As a long time elite, CX redemptions have long been the thing we all point to as the redeeming quality of their program. But with CX's future uncertain and the recent...
"Spectacularly bad" is the perfect way to put it. Having AS miles be 1:1 with AA alone would be a huge devaluation of the program yet but having the program be worse than AA is a giant red flag for any AS elite.
As a long time elite, CX redemptions have long been the thing we all point to as the redeeming quality of their program. But with CX's future uncertain and the recent devaluations of their miles (wtf is the Qatar chart), you'd be foolish to say AS miles still hold their spot as the top valued airline miles. Very sad to see this program fall so quickly.
Europe to Africa for 35k in J isn’t bad though! What makes no sense is that it is cheaper than the 45k for an intra-Africa ticket
Considering how quickly my miles added up as an AS G75k when flying partners in J, I'm not so surprised by these redemption rates. Flying between BKK and the East Coast on Korean in J (or to Europe on EK or BA in J) back when I lived in Thailand amassed me over a million miles in two years. No way I'd get that many redeemable miles with DL or AA, nor would I be...
Considering how quickly my miles added up as an AS G75k when flying partners in J, I'm not so surprised by these redemption rates. Flying between BKK and the East Coast on Korean in J (or to Europe on EK or BA in J) back when I lived in Thailand amassed me over a million miles in two years. No way I'd get that many redeemable miles with DL or AA, nor would I be able to regularly redeem them, at a consistent rate, with DL or AA. For example: each time I checked DL to redeem to/from Asia and the East Coast, I was looking at nearly 400k miles in J one way! That's insane. AA isn't much better nowadays, if you can even find J availability. Not saying I love these rates on AS's new partners, but I'm not altogether ready to throw my AS status away just yet.
I don't want to be rude, but why do you keep using Cathay Pacific as an example. Forget about that airline. Hong Kong will never be what it used to be in geopolitical realm, so let's move on.
It's almost impossible to fly there and it will be for a long time. I am actually glad that Alaska is adjusting some of those redemption rates, as these promos of buying miles and artificially giving...
I don't want to be rude, but why do you keep using Cathay Pacific as an example. Forget about that airline. Hong Kong will never be what it used to be in geopolitical realm, so let's move on.
It's almost impossible to fly there and it will be for a long time. I am actually glad that Alaska is adjusting some of those redemption rates, as these promos of buying miles and artificially giving a value to these miles in arbitrary ratios, that some blogs are doing, is just wrong.
I would never use AS miles with Air Maroc, but options are there
I'm not going to disagree that 75k for J on IB or AY is steep. But seats have been available at that price. I booked some.
Prior to booking, I did look at AA availability for the lower price - it wasn't available. I'll take 75k miles for J over the 86k AA miles for PE or Y.
I think a more interesting phenomenon IB brings to the table is the ability to book SEA-MIA-MAD...
I'm not going to disagree that 75k for J on IB or AY is steep. But seats have been available at that price. I booked some.
Prior to booking, I did look at AA availability for the lower price - it wasn't available. I'll take 75k miles for J over the 86k AA miles for PE or Y.
I think a more interesting phenomenon IB brings to the table is the ability to book SEA-MIA-MAD in Y for 35k miles, when just the SEA-MIA flight in Y is 30k miles. The international connection appears to be opening saver availability.
I'm not paying 120k miles for a one way on Air Maroc.
If RAM had a better route network within Africa I could see some use for the partnership. For example, 100k miles from US to Cape town with a stopover in Morroco isn't amazing, but the I could myself redeeming for that kind of unique routing, but with RAM only serving W Africa, I see no use for this partnership at the published redemption rates.
I wouldn't be so quick as to 'order' a reality check on the pricing - I'd rather the award pricing remains the way they are than, say, have all business class one-ways at 80,000 miles, whether you're flying RAM to Europe or Cathay to Singapore. Or worst yet - RAM flight to Morocco prices out at 60k and Cathay prices out to 90k! I'd much prefer these niche routings for outsized value - the way...
I wouldn't be so quick as to 'order' a reality check on the pricing - I'd rather the award pricing remains the way they are than, say, have all business class one-ways at 80,000 miles, whether you're flying RAM to Europe or Cathay to Singapore. Or worst yet - RAM flight to Morocco prices out at 60k and Cathay prices out to 90k! I'd much prefer these niche routings for outsized value - the way United used to have on their open jaws and travel from SE Asia to Australia; now everything is priced high.
Mileage plan is probably worst of all the loyalty programs now.
Have you checked the redemption rates for Qatar ..150k for economy class between US and Qatar. After losing emirates,there is just no more value left in Mileage plan
As a long time AS flyer (MM+) this comes as no surprise. Many of us long time flyers are dismayed at the new managements race to pony up with AA/OW. AA traditionally has hosed AS flyer award redemption and those of us here in the west securing anything but main cabin is useless. One World has proved almost useless to AS flyers case in point if you want anything but back of the bus BA...
As a long time AS flyer (MM+) this comes as no surprise. Many of us long time flyers are dismayed at the new managements race to pony up with AA/OW. AA traditionally has hosed AS flyer award redemption and those of us here in the west securing anything but main cabin is useless. One World has proved almost useless to AS flyers case in point if you want anything but back of the bus BA is still your best bet to Europe, going around the other way Qatar simply replaced EK to Africa.
Bottom line The first two posters are spot on it sucks!! AS is no longer that airline we once knew.
Just awful. Just like in country service (Morocco) that RAM provides. Sometimes.
I 100% agree that these are spectacularly bad and inconsistent. I'd also note that RAM is hardly an industry leading product . . .