Back in August 2017, Alaska Airlines and Singapore Airlines announced a partnership, which would offer reciprocal mileage earning and redemption opportunities for members of both programs.
While I appreciate Alaska’s unique array of airline partners, I’ve been quite disappointed by the pace at which they’ve been implementing the features of some of their recent partnerships.
The slow implementation of the Alaska & Singapore partnership
In the case of Alaska and Singapore, the airlines launched reciprocal mileage earning as of September 2017. Also as of that point, it became possible to redeem Singapore KrisFlyer miles for travel on Alaska.
It was announced at the time that Alaska Mileage Plan redemptions for travel on Singapore Airlines would be launched at a later date, which many of us believed to mean that it may be a few weeks or months.
Well, it has now been over 18 months, and it’s still not possible to redeem Alaska miles on Singapore.
You can already redeem Singapore miles on Alaska
You can now redeem Alaska miles on Singapore… sort of
Well, there’s a hint that this may be changing shortly. Actually, as of this very moment it’s possible to redeem Alaska miles on Singapore, but not in a useful way.
As noted by InsideFlyer, at the moment Alaska Mileage Plan is showing award flights on Singapore Airlines for the first time… but only when trying to redeem miles between Cancun and the Maldives, with the flight from Cancun to Frankfurt on Condor, and then flights from Frankfurt to Singapore to Male on Singapore Airlines.
It’s pretty obvious that this is a glitch, and what makes it even stranger is that this is a mixed airline award, where you can fly both Condor and Singapore Airlines. Ordinarily Alaska doesn’t let you mix airline partners on a single award ticket.
So my conclusion based on this is that it seems fairly obvious that availability being displayed is a glitch. However, this also says to me that Alaska is in the process of adding Singapore awards, as clearly the inventory is being loaded, it’s just not programmed correctly.
Alaska redemptions on Singapore are now available… in a very limited capacity
Why all of this doesn’t matter much
Even if we do see Alaska Mileage Plan redemptions on Singapore, don’t get excited at all. Generally speaking Singapore Airlines only makes long haul economy award seats available to partner programs, so I wouldn’t expect that you’ll be able to redeem Alaska miles for long haul premium cabin travel on Singapore Airlines in any useful way.
The good news is that KrisFlyer is transfer partners with Amex Membership Rewards, Capital One, Chase Ultimate Rewards, and Citi ThankYou, so there are lots of easy ways to earn those points.
- 5x total points on travel purchased through Chase Travel
- 3x points on dining
- 2x points on travel purchases
- $95
- 3x points on Travel after the $300 Annual Travel Credit
- 3x points on Dining
- $300 Travel Credit
- $550
- 4x points at restaurants, on up to $50,000 in purchases annually
- 4x points at U.S. supermarkets, on up to $25,000 in purchases annually
- 3x points on flights booked directly with airlines or through amextravel.com
- $325
- Earn 5x points on flights purchased directly from airlines or through Amex Travel (up to $500k/year)
- $200 Annual Uber Credit
- Amex Centurion Lounge Access
- $695
- Earn 2x miles per dollar on every purchase
- No Foreign Transaction Fees
- 10,000 bonus miles every account anniversary
- $395
- Earn unlimited 2X miles on every purchase, every day
- No Foreign Transaction Fees
- Global Entry/TSA Pre-Check Credit
- $95
If you want to redeem miles for Singapore first class, use KrisFlyer
Bottom line
It seems to me like Mileage Plan redemptions on Singapore should be live shortly, hopefully well before Singapore Airlines launches nonstop flights between Singapore and Seattle as of September 2019.
Can I book flights on Singapore airlines using my Alaska mileage plan points?
They are a partner but cant tell
With Lufthansa miles and more able to redeem SQ business class tickets from Europe to Singapore. I wouldn't be surprised Alaska being allowed for redemption on these routes.
@flyingrohit: like Buck T said, check on the Use Miles box. I search for intra-Asia all the time, try searching for SIN-TYO on Jan 22nd. You'll see JAL flies to both NRT and HND, and business award space available. Another example is SGN-ICN same date. It will show you Korean Air space (be aware that Korean Air is always priced at roundtrip even when you book one way)
The mean streak in Alaska Loyalty combined with the arrogance rife in SQ Loyalty will ensure that only Economy award travel will ever be available on SQ. Yippee...…… not!
@flyingrohit Alaska only shows you partner award availability of you have the "use miles" box checked in the search feature. the Caveat is that not all partner airlines are bookable online. Some require a call to AS directly for booking (Cathay specifically). If you are looking for paid flights, the international partners will not display online at all.
@Suzino do you have to do anything special when you search it? Anytime I do anything that’s not to/from the US, I get the error “we were unable to complete your request. Please try selecting a different city pair or travel dates”.
@flyingrohit: not really. They show intra Asia awards on Korean Air and Japan Airlines.
I thought MileagePlan Award website only will show results if to/from the USA? Has this always been wrong or is it true only for certain awards?
@angry380: the earning chart does have R fare (discounted pe). Or is there another lower fare class?
I would say Alaska’s immediate priority is update their SQ earning chart so I can credit cheapest SQ PE fares to Alaska.... it’s ridiculous that they haven’t done that for many months