Wide Open: Redeem Alaska Points For Starlux Business Class

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. Every so often we see a dump of award availability, and this is one of those cases!

Redeem Alaska points for Starlux business class

Currently Starlux Airlines doesn’t belong to any global alliance (though the airline hopes to join oneworld), and Alaska Atmos Rewards 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 @milesmadeeasy and flagged by @findflightsforme.

Basically over the course of the next year, there are many dates with availability on all transpacific routes. I don’t want to say availability is amazing across the board, but it’s very good, with plenty of flights having availability, and some having multiple seats.

This is true across Starlux’s destinations in the United States, which include Los Angeles (LAX), Phoenix (PHX), San Francisco (SFO), and Seattle (SEA). To find availability, just use the calendar function on Alaska’s website, and pick dates from there.

What’s award pricing like, if you’re redeeming Alaska Atmos Rewards points? Below is the Alaska Atmos Rewards award chart for the Asia-Pacific region, which covers all flights in question. Specifically:

• You’ll pay 15,000 points for a Starlux business class itinerary covering a distance of under 1,500 miles
• You’ll pay 50,000 points for a Starlux business class itinerary covering a distance of 1,501-3,000 miles
• You’ll pay 60,000 points for a Starlux business class itinerary covering a distance of 3,001-5,000 miles
• You’ll pay 75,000 points for a Starlux business class itinerary covering a distance of 5,001-7,000 miles
• You’ll pay 85,000 points for a Starlux business class itinerary covering a distance of 7,001-10,000 miles

Also keep in mind that Atmos Rewards 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.

Let me just remind everyone that this award availability will go fast, so I’d be cautious about transferring points to Atmos Rewards (from programs like Bilt Rewards) to take advantage of this, since some availability may be snatched up by others, and may no longer be available by the time you book.

Alaska Atmos Rewards lets members redeposit award tickets for free (minus the partner award booking fee, unless you get a waiver for that), so locking something in is pretty low risk.

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 Atmos Rewards has a significant amount of Starlux business class award availability for travel through the end of the schedule. Many flights have multiple seats, so take a look at availability out of Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Seattle. If you’re interested, I’d recommend locking something in ASAP.

Anyone taking advantage of this great Starlux award availability?