Questions and Answers

Hello all,

I’m considering trying to earn the highest status on Alaska Airlines next year, and was wondering if anyone had recommendations for how to do this the fastest, or if anyone wants to chime in on their experiences reaching this status. A few questions are below:
– Did you go for the miles, or # of segments to reach your goal?
– Looks like most of their partner airlines give only 50% or less miles in economy; do any of their partners have consistently “cheap” business class fares to take advantage of?
– Is there another airline that you’d recommend getting status with? If so, why? (I’m looking at Alaska mainly for their good redemption rates on their partner airlines, namely Cathay Pacific!)

Another couple of constraints, I’ll have 3 weeks or so at the beginning of next year to try to accure these miles, and I’m hoping I can do it without spending much more than $5000; I’ll only have money from summer jobs to work with!

Thank you to anyone who’s willing to answer these!

Hello Willem.

Would you mind sharing with us where in the world you will be traveling from?

I think AA is still offering pretty good deals on US-South America with multiple connections.

HU may still have cheap business class fares fro LAX-CSX, check that out. If it books into the R fare class, AS codes that as First class earning 200%

If you can get to CMB in Sri Lanka, oneway business class fares on CX can be pretty inexpensive at times.

In terms of status with other airlines, where are you based and what are your general travel patterns?

Assuming earning is the same, there shouldn’t be any reason to lock yourself into a single airline to earn status. I would check the premium fares forum on flyertalk and pick up whatever itineraries will work for your time frame and budget.

[QUOTE=”No Name, post: 16956, member: 268″]Hello Willem.

Would you mind sharing with us where in the world you will be traveling from?[/QUOTE]
I’m based at SFO, so I would at least start my travels from there!

[QUOTE=”David W, post: 16959, member: 29″]I think AA is still offering pretty good deals on US-South America with multiple connections.

HU may still have cheap business class fares fro LAX-CSX, check that out. If it books into the R fare class, AS codes that as First class earning 200%

If you can get to CMB in Sri Lanka, oneway business class fares on CX can be pretty inexpensive at times.

In terms of status with other airlines, where are you based and what are your general travel patterns?[/QUOTE]
I’m based at SFO, and (as a student) could do 3-4 leisure trips per year. I flew only Star Alliance until United switched to a revenue program; as I always book the cheapest economy fares I can find, this was detrimental to me so I wanted to try other programs… I’ll still do probably 3-4 leisure trips still, but would be willing to spend a few days primarily flying, in order to get and maintain airline status for the future.

Also, I am interning at a Seattle company that might give me a full-time offer based on my performance this summer; if I get and take that, then being an Alaska Airlines frequent flyer would make a lot more sense

depends on what kinds of trips those are. if theyre all domestic trips, 90k miles is a huge stretch. Furthermore, maintaining status can be fairly expensive and time consuming for a student.