Alaska Airlines Adds Online Award Search for Several More Airlines Including Emirates

by Gary Leff

Back in March Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan introduced the ability to book one-way and mixed partner awards online and for some partners.

Initially you could book one-way awards on American. You could also book one-way at full roundtrip price on Delta, or mix and match American and Delta in a roundtrip.

Then in April they introduced one-way and online booking for British Airways awards.

Now as flagged on Milepoint, it’s possible to book more partners online as well.

The Alaska Airlines website lists the following carriers as searchable:

  • Alaska Airlines
  • Aeromexico
  • Air France
  • Air Pacific
  • American Airlines
  • British Airways
  • Delta Air Lines
  • Emirates
  • Era Alaska
  • KLM
  • PenAir
  • Qantas

It’s interesting that they have KLM and not their partner Air France.

I’m especially happy to see though that many awards can be booked one-way (that the Delta restriction is somewhat unique).

And I’m thrilled to have online access to award search (and one-way booking) for Emirates.

Of course that’ll reveal just how sparse first class award space is. Business is reasonably available, but their business class product isn’t all that impressive (especially compared to first class on the A380 with showers..).

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Pingbacks

  1. […] Back in late March, one-way and multi-carrier awards became bookable online and via the phone for Alaska, American, British Airways, and Delta flights. The change allowed for one-way AA and Alaska awards for half the cost of roundtrip flights as well as combined partner and class awards on roundtrip award flights (Delta priced at half the price when included in a roundtrip itinerary but one-way DL awards were still priced at the full r/t price). At the time, I received direct confirmation from Alaska Airline’s online team that online one-way partner availability for Mileage Plan members would be expanded to include additional partners in “late spring”…and it seems that late spring has arrived! Unfortunately, their team didn’t follow-up with an update, but Gary posted about the positive changes earlier this week. […]

Comments

  1. This is great news. Alaska is smart with their numerous, cross-alliance affiliations.

    Of course, it is impossible for something to be “somewhat unique”. Unique-ness is an absolute state. No qualifiers allowed! 🙂

  5. “as flagged on Milepoint” er, right … more like “as copied from FlyerTalk with little or no information or discussion on Milepoint” lol

  6. Any word on whether the AS availability matches DL? The DL site is god awful, so I’m just curious whether this is a better way to search SkyTeam.

  9. So, is the AF availability at AS.com proof that DL is blocking AF awards, as opposed to AF not making them available to DL?

  10. Nice to see airlines adding functionality (even if it’s an airline I don’t really frequent).

    Let’s be fair though…it was “flagged” on FlyerTalk first, many hours before it showed up on MilePoint. And there’s a heckuva lot more helpful discussion about it at FT.

  11. Beware the AF availability. A lot of it is mixed cabin, with the overwater portion in coach.

  12. @MilesAbound I read about this on Milepoint which is why I credited it there. And snark aside it doesn’t appear from the Milepoint thread in question that anyone copied anything at all.

  13. @Rocky — I’m specifically referring to SFO-CDG nonstop AF business class availability, which is quite good. I finally feel lied to by DL…

  14. As far as Aeromexico, Alaska seems to have the same problem as .dumb with Aeromexico award space after 9/30. AM is changing codes after 9/30, but inventory is still loaded with the old codes after 9/30, so can’t book Aeromexico awards out of e.g. LAX after 9/30.

  16. Is it possible to book an Alaska Premium Economy flight with British Airways Avios?

  17. Looks like the Aeromexico issue I mentioned is limited to specific flights, particularly biz after 9/30. For example, SFO-MEX biz is wide open up to 9/30, then disappears after 9/30. Could be that Aeromexico is drastically reducing award space after 9/30 but seems more likely the award inventory is loaded to the old buckets. At least Alaska is showing awards that can be booked. Delta errors out when you search by schedule and pick awards loaded to the old buckets.

  18. @Gene: It seems that AS is getting access to more inventory than DL, not that DL is blocking things. I’m seeing CDG-SFO on the AF non-stop show up on the AS site, but there is no O inventory showing on that date on ExpertFlyer. Unsurprisingly, when no O shows, DL doesn’t have access. On the other hand, on another date where O does show on ExpertFlyer, DL.dumb does show the inventory. Oddly, only when doing a one-way search. It won’t show it as an option on a round-trip.

  19. @Mitch — DL.com actually shows O availability from SFO-CDG? Please share the dates…

  20. Great post!
    Is Emirates Intra Asia (HKG-BKK) awards one-way awards now possible with Alaska Airlines?
    I only see miles for USAsia on the webpage.

  21. Make sure you add the selected flights to your cart…AS is good at saying there is availability in business/first but when you look closely it is a combination of first/coach..coach being the long segment…

  22. @Gene: SFO-CDG on 16 Feb 14 and back on 5 Mar 14. I did find that I had to check the box to show nonstop flight options or do the searches for one way at a time. I won’t argue that DL.dumb isn’t buggy or that DL didn’t bring this on themselves in part by having bad award availability offered to partners. However, I have yet to see any evidence that they’re actively blocking award space that AF offers to them.

  23. I thought 23K on the A380 was pretty comfortable in J when I flew it. Lots of space, private because of the bulkhead.

Comments are closed.