Alaska Airlines Award Chart Overhaul Coming

For a long time, Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan has been a popular frequent flyer program due to its excellent value award flight redemptions. As Alaska Airlines also sells miles, often with bonus miles attached during promotions, some Australians have even been buying Mileage Plan miles on a regular basis.

Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan redemptions may be a bit niche, and the award charts are currently a bit messy. But the value provided by Alaska’s current award charts can be unbeatable. For example, it costs just 30,000 miles to fly Cathay Pacific Business Class from Australia to Hong Kong or 55,000 miles for Qantas Business Class to Los Angeles. You could also fly Qantas Business Class on any domestic route in Australia (even something like Perth-Cairns) for a fixed rate of 20,000 miles.

Although Alaska Airlines joined the Oneworld alliance in 2021, it has retained many of its partnerships with carriers outside of the Oneworld alliance. These include Air Tahiti Nui, Condor, Hainan Airlines, Icelandair, Korean Air, LATAM and Singapore Airlines.

There are also no carrier charges payable when redeeming miles on most airlines, with the exceptions of British Airways and Hainan Airlines. Instead, you’ll just pay any genuine taxes and a partner award fee of USD12.50 per direction.

The current downsides of redeeming Alaska Mileage Plan miles

While Mileage Plan redemptions on some airlines and routes are excellent value, the program in its current form does also have some downsides.

One disadvantage is that you can only redeem Alaska Airlines miles on specific routes listed in the award chart. For example, you can redeem Alaska miles for Qantas flights within Australia or to the United States – but not to New Zealand, Asia, South Africa or Europe.

It’s also still not possible to redeem Mileage Plan miles for flights on Oneworld member SriLankan airlines.

Furthermore, redemptions on Cathay Pacific or LATAM Airlines are not yet available to book on the Alaska Airlines website. This means you have to call up during opening hours to enquire about award availability and book award flights on these airlines – a privilege for which Alaska Airlines charges a non-refundable USD15 call centre booking fee.

Alaska Airlines also currently has a separate award chart for travel on each partner airline. While redemptions on some partner airlines remain great value, awards on other partners such as Malaysia Airlines or Qatar Airways are rather poor value.

Alaska Airlines will “simplify” its award charts

With this in mind, the recent announcement from Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan about changes to the program’s award charts is mixed news.

Last week, Alaska Airlines published this notice on its website titled “Update on partner awards”:

Good news for 2022!  Cathay Pacific awards will be available to book on alaskaair.com in October and LATAM awards will be available before the end of 2022.

Starting late December, the way you view award charts online is changing. We’ll have a simplified award chart to show you where award levels start based on which regions you’re traveling from and to. With this change, similar to awards on Alaska, partner award levels may vary depending on multiple factors including route, distance, or demand. You’ll continue to be able to enjoy great value for your miles. As always, the best way to view pricing and availability for the routes you’re interested in flying is to search for your specific travel dates and destinations.

On one hand, it’s good that it will soon be possible to book Cathay Pacific and LATAM Airlines award seats on the Alaska Airlines website. Presumably, it would also soon be possible to redeem miles on SriLankan Airlines, since both airlines are part of the Oneworld alliance.

Given the current complexity of the Alaska Airlines award charts, which only allow you to redeem miles for flights on certain routes, a “simplification” could also be a good thing in some respects. Since Alaska Airlines hasn’t updated its award charts in years, even after it entered Oneworld in 2021, this was always expected.

But it’s highly unlikely that Mileage Plan will decide to retain all of the current award “sweet spots” such as Cathay Pacific Business Class from Australia to Hong Kong for 30,000 miles or Qantas First Class to Los Angeles for 70,000 miles each way.

Crucially, the wording used in this announcement also hints that Alaska Airlines will soon use dynamic award pricing for partner airline redemptions. An award chart that shows where award levels start from, and where prices can vary according to demand, is one where redemption costs are not fixed and can be increased at any time at the whim of the loyalty program. That’s probably the most concerning part of this announcement.

As for the program being simplified, some would argue that the current system is more “simple” than the new one as you know exactly how many miles an award flight will cost. Under the new system, trying to find determine much an award flight will cost could be a lot more complicated.

We’ll have to wait and see exactly what these changes bring. But if you’re currently sitting on a pile of Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles, it might be a good idea to think about redeeming them now while award prices are still fixed and – at least on many partner airlines – generally great value.

Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: Alaska Airlines to “simplify” award charts from December 2022

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 70 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.