Alaska’s Member-Unfriendly Award Booking Change

Alaska Airlines is currently in the process of overhauling its Mileage Plan frequent flyer program. It’s introducing new award flight pricing, while also opening up partner airline redemptions on more routes.

Some of the changes are good, while others aren’t so good. Unfortunately, one of the changes that Alaska Airlines has quietly introduced this month is particularly unfriendly to some frequent flyers.

“Cannot enter another airline’s frequent flyer number”

As flagged by LoyaltyLobby, Alaska Airlines has updated its General Terms & Conditions for award bookings with the following new clause:

When redeeming miles for an award ticket from Alaska Mileage Plan account, customer cannot enter another airline’s frequent flyer number and is thus ineligible for benefits from another program.

Alaska Airlines website

This is mentioned on the Alaska Airlines award charts webpage under the “Alaska award charts” section.

At a minimum, this applies to award bookings for travel on Alaska Airlines. It’s not clear whether this condition would also apply to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan redemptions on partner airlines, as the same clause is not listed in the General Terms & Conditions under the partner award charts.

There is no mention of this policy in Mileage Plan program T&Cs.

What this means for frequent flyers

Unfortunately, this means that if you book a reward ticket using Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles and have status with another Oneworld airline such as Qantas, British Airways or American Airlines, you won’t be able to use your Oneworld status benefits.

When redeeming Alaska Airlines miles for an international Business or First Class ticket, that isn’t really a problem because you would get access to most of the same benefits anyway. But if flying Economy or Premium Economy and you have Qantas Gold status, for example, you won’t be able to use your Qantas status benefits on an Alaska Airlines award booking.

You also wouldn’t be able to use your status with a non-US Oneworld airline to gain lounge access on domestic itineraries within North America.

Why would Alaska Airlines do this?

When you use your Oneworld status benefits with a partner airline, and you’re flying Economy or Premium Economy, the operating airline generally needs to pay for this. For example, if you had Qantas Platinum status and used the lounge ahead of an Alaska Airlines flight, Alaska Airlines would need to pay the lounge operator.

By preventing members from changing the frequent flyer number on redemption bookings, Alaska can avoid providing status benefits to members of partner airlines.

This could also be part of a broader strategy to encourage Americans to engage with its Mileage Plan program, rather than American Airlines AAdvantage.

Do any other airlines have this policy?

I have certainly come across airlines that make it difficult to change the frequent flyer number on an award booking on their website. But you can usually change this by simply calling the operating airline, or asking when checking in at the airport.

For example, I recently redeemed Etihad Guest miles for a Virgin Australia flight. I don’t hold any status with Etihad, but I do have Velocity Platinum with Virgin Australia. I was able to add my Velocity number to the booking by calling Virgin Australia, and showed my Velocity card to access the Virgin Australia Lounge.

In the past, I have had trouble with Air New Zealand. I had redeemed Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles for an Air New Zealand Economy flight. I wanted to change the loyalty program on my booking from KrisFlyer to a different program where I held Star Alliance Gold status, but couldn’t do this on the Singapore Airlines website.

When I called Air New Zealand, they told me over the phone that this wasn’t possible. But I was able to change the frequent flyer number at the airport in order to access the lounge.

I fly on dozens of award tickets each year – often travelling on partner airlines. The above example with Air New Zealand is the only time I’ve had trouble changing the frequent flyer number on my booking, in order to access status benefits.

So, this new Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan policy is not normal. It’s not member-friendly, either. I hope this isn’t the start of a new trend.

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.