With Alaska Airlines having just joined the oneworld alliance, there’s an exciting development when it comes to redeeming British Airways Avios for travel on the Seattle-based airline.
In this post:
Redeem Avios on Alaska flights online
Alaska Airlines and British Airways have had a partnership that goes back to way before Alaska joined oneworld, and this allowed reciprocal points earning and redemption opportunities.
Redeeming British Airways Avios on Alaska Airlines was a great deal, but there was a major catch — these awards weren’t bookable online. Rather you had to phone up the Executive Club call center to book these flights, which was often a pain, as I found hold times to often be significant.
It’s now possible to redeem British Airways Avios for travel on Alaska Airlines directly through ba.com. This is a fantastic development, since it makes this redemption option so easy.
It’s now possible to redeem Avios for travel on Alaska online
You can just go to British Airways’ online award search tool, and if Alaska Airlines has award availability it will automatically show up.
Why redeeming Avios on Alaska is a good deal
Thanks to British Airways’ distance based award chart, redeeming Avios for travel on Alaska Airlines is one of my favorite uses of Avios, especially thanks to the lack of fuel surcharges for these redemptions.
British Airways Executive Club award pricing on Alaska Airlines is based on the one-way distance of each segment, as follows:
- Flights of up to 1,150 miles cost 9,000 Avios in economy and 16,500 Avios in first class
- Flights of 1,151-2,000 miles cost 11,000 Avios in economy and 22,000 Avios in first class
- Flights of 2,001-3,000 miles cost 13,000 Avios in economy and 38,750 Avios in first class
While British Airways Executive Club won’t always have the lowest cost in terms of the number of points required, there are some major advantages to booking through the program:
- British Airways Executive Club is transfer partners with Amex Membership Rewards and Chase Ultimate Rewards, making the points pretty easy to come by (Alaska Mileage Plan doesn’t partner with any transferable points currency)
- There are sometimes transfer bonuses from transferable points currencies to British Airways Executive Club, improving the value proposition even further
Redeeming Avios on Alaska can represent a great value
Bottom line
It’s now possible to redeem British Airways Avios for travel on Alaska Airlines directly through ba.com, which is a huge improvement to this redemption opportunity. Often I find the best redemption value on Alaska Airlines is through British Airways Executive Club, given how easy Avios are to come by.
The fact that these bookings can now be made online makes me much more likely to book through British Airways, since the hassle factor is gone.
Anyone else excited to see British Airways add Alaska Airlines redemptions online?
(Tip of the hat to Alex)
Ditto - and from the Alaska site it seems they upped the mileage to 50,000 miles each way! WHAT A BUMMER. No longer excited about Alaska Airlines, even tho it's one of the few with a direct flight from Boston to Portland.
Hi. This is my first time using Chase > BA > AK Air. I found flights on AK, but they don't show up on ba.com. Is that because I have to transfer my Chase points first to Avios so the points are at BA? This makes me pretty nervous since I don't see the flights available! Thanks.
Nope. Still got to call.
Worked for me.
Are you looking at the right part of the BA website? ( at top left of Top of BA page next to "Discover", hit "Book" >>"Flights>> Book with Avios" ) Do NOT try to go to the purify "Flights piece mid page.
Used it twice in three weeks to book Alaska fits .
Alaska flights to where? I just read your comment, got excited, tried again to book to Lihue and nothing. I'd post a screen shot but it says "Error
British Airways and its partners do not fly this route. Please consider alternative destinations or contact your executive club service centre" So disappointing! I book this trip every year and it is the biggest hassle!
I was having this same issue but it I think it might've be been caused by having more than one BA browser tab open. I closed that and logged-in again the problem seemed to go away.
Sadly, I can’t find any availability on the BA site for Alaska to Hawaii. And there are a lot of Alaska flights to Hawaii
Worked for me.
Are you looking at the right part of the BA website? ( at top left of Top of BA page next to "Discover", hit "Book" >>"Flights>> Book with Avios" ) Do NOT try to go to the purify "Flights piece mid page.
Used it twice in three weeks to book Alaska fits .
This is useful info and I saw plenty of availability from SNA. However, the BA Exec Club has been down for 5 days and counting making redeeming avios impossible.
Didn't work at all. The BA website doesn't show any routes to Alaska at all. You would think they would have Alaska, b/c thats where Alaska mainly flies.
Not a very useful partnership if they won't book on all Alaska Airlines routes with Avios. BUR - PDX was a fail through ba site, even though Alaska runs that route. It would be nicer if we could use Avios on Alaska Airlines site, now THAT would be exciting.
Worked for me.
Are you looking at the right part of the BA website? ( at top left of Top of BA page next to "Discover", hit "Book" >>"Flights>> Book with Avios" ) Do NOT try to go to the purify "Flights piece mid page.
Used it twice in three weeks to book Alaska fits .
Same here.
I tired this as you instructed and it didn't work. The flights I can clearly see on Alaska's site, don't show up on BA.
I spoke to several BA agents in an attempt to book SEA-DAL (since routings to DAL cannot be booked through their site). They all stated that DAL cannot be used as a destination at all when booking with Avios despite Alaska having available partner award spaces.
I thought I may have luck hanging up and trying a different agent, but 5 different agents all provided the same answer. Quite frustrating.
No love. Looking for BOI-OGG, via PHX, and it says they don't fly that route. BS
Worked for me.
Are you looking at the right part of the BA website? ( at top left of Top of BA page next to "Discover", hit "Book" >>"Flights>> Book with Avios" ) Do NOT try to go to the purify "Flights piece mid page.
Used it twice in three weeks to book Alaska fits .
Hey Ben - What fare codes for Coach and First class does AS need to have available to utilize booking with Avios?
@Mike Saint I can find on 8/29 SAN-OGG. If you haven't, search on aa.com (using nonstop filter) rather than alaskaair.com.
Give BA a call. If the city is not showing online they are happy to book it without extra telephone booking fee (and seems to be aware of the issue for some partner airlines)
I agree that I don't see a bunch of cities. For example, I don't see any Alaska flights from SAN to OGG.
Hmm.. that's odd. Looks like 'DAL' code is working in that SFO-DFW and SFO-DAL results are different. Only problem is SFO-DAL comes out nothing despite what aa.com or alaskaair.com says.
Thanks for the tip; that does work for those cities. Unfortunately, I was trying to book an award to Dallas Love Field (DAL), but BA's site either does not find results or defaults back to Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) even when searching for DAL.
@Peter @AndrewDTX Just type in the airport code manually and move on. I could search ANC-SCC first class 15k on July or ANC-BRW economy class 9k also on July.
Do you have any tips on how to book to destinations that Alaska services but AA doesn't? While it accepts the airport codes and attempting a search shows the correct city, the airport doesn't pre-populate in the search box like it does with other AA-serviced destinations.
I was able to find several flights where Alaska definitely has award space, but no awards can be booked through BA if AA does not also serve the airport.
Now if only seats were available. Nothing from BWI-SEA that I have found after 45 minutes of searching.
Any thoughts on if BA will add airports only served by Alaska into the online booking tool? I can't search for a flight to many of the more remote Alaskan airports (BRW, SCC, etc..) since they don't show up in the BA booking tool (likely because they were never served by any airlines in the tool prior to now).
I've been waiting almost 10 years for this day. As much as I've enjoyed chatting with friendly British phone agents over time, this makes my life much easier.