In 2023, we saw Alaska Airlines and Starlux Airlines launch a partnership, coinciding with the Taiwanese carrier commencing service to the United States. While award availability was great for about a day when the partnership first launched, unfortunately it has been extremely limited since then. Fortunately at the moment, quite a bit of Starlux award availability has opened up, so act fast!
In this post:
Redeem Alaska miles for Starlux business class
Currently Starlux Airlines doesn’t belong to any global alliance (though the airline hopes to join oneworld), and Alaska Mileage Plan is the only practical program for redeeming on Starlux. Fortunately there’s some good news for those who are ready to book travel, as reported by @pointslodi.
Between March 1 and May 16, 2025, Starlux business class award availability across the Pacific is wide open, with most flights having two business class award seats. This is true across Starlux’s destinations in the United States, which are comprised of Los Angeles (LAX), San Francisco (SFO), and Seattle (SEA).
What’s award pricing like, if you’re redeeming Alaska Mileage Plan miles? Below is the Alaska Mileage Plan award chart for the Asia-Pacific region, which covers all flights in question. Specifically:
- You’ll pay 15,000 miles for a Starlux business class itinerary covering a distance of under 1,500 miles
- You’ll pay 50,000 miles for a Starlux business class itinerary covering a distance of 1,501-3,000 miles
- You’ll pay 60,000 miles for a Starlux business class itinerary covering a distance of 3,001-5,000 miles
- You’ll pay 75,000 miles for a Starlux business class itinerary covering a distance of 5,001-7,000 miles
- You’ll pay 85,000 miles for a Starlux business class itinerary covering a distance of 7,001-10,000 miles
Also keep in mind that Mileage Plan allows free stopovers, so you can always stop in Taiwan enroute to another destination. For the routes that do have award space, there’s often also availability for connecting itineraries, if you want to travel beyond Taipei (TPE).
Being able to redeem 75K-85K miles for a transpacific business class award on a great airline is an opportunity worth being aware of, in my opinion.
Why this is a solid redemption opportunity
Award availability across the Pacific simply isn’t as good as it used to be, especially in premium cabins. That’s largely because airlines from mainland China are operating a small percentage of their pre-pandemic transpacific schedule, and back in the day, they did a lot of capacity dumping.
So the truth is that reliably finding any business class award space across the Pacific isn’t easy. When a quality airline like Starlux makes a lot of business class award space available, it’s absolutely worth taking advantage of.
I’ve reviewed Starlux’s A350-900 business class, A330-900neo business class, and A321neo business class.
Bottom line
At the moment, Alaska Mileage Plan has a significant amount of Starlux business class award availability for travel this spring, between the beginning of March and the middle of May of 2025. There are two business class award seats on most flights, so if you could benefit from this availability, I’d recommend locking in something ASAP.
Anyone taking advantage of this great Starlux award availability?
I am not sure about stopover rule when using Alaska miles for JX... Maybe it works when originating from NA destinations...
I found out when playing with BKK/CNX-TPE-NRT that it was cheaper to book two separate segments, even on the same day, rather than through one suggested by the Alaska website
AS is like this. For a lot of routes it is literally cheaper to buy 2 separate flights than booking 1 connecting flight because the person who designed the chart cannot understand simple math. Medium hauls in EMEA and Asia are especially troubling.
I had a 250K DCA SFO TPE SIN BUT FOUND A 75K thru SEA but 1st leg in economy - 6F. Hope I survive ;-)
Also played around with Sydney and could get to LHR via SIN in new BA Biz for 85,000 AA miles.
I've been watching this all morning. With only two seats per flight, they've just been picked off all morning and now they appear to be all gone. Thanks for the post, I snagged TPE-SEA!
Thanks for writing about this. It appears that a few minutes after this was posted, the award availability was corrected and is back to the 200k ish points each way again.
While it's good news that some availability has appeared here (and thanks for the awareness), what's more frustrating is how nearly all of the time, redemptions for Starlux are at the ridiculous 300k+ mile level.
As if that's a plausible amount to pay for a ticket.
You would almost rather they not even show us availability if it costs that much, rather than suggest that Alaska would charge its customers that much for a ticket with a straight face.
seeing all at 175k
Do not see anymore 75K. Flex search showing 175K either for 1 or 2 pax.
Hey Ben, not sure how open you are to writing about international point redemptions, but there's wide open JAL first class from SYD-TYO from now through the end of March for 60k on AA!
Thanks a ton, Lucky! I was eyeing on Asian trip for late March. This is perfect.
Score! I was able to book 2 in J for a June return. Thx Lucky