Alaska Airlines Introduces One-Way Awards

Alaska Mileage Plan is now offering one way awards at half the mileage of a roundtrip. This even applies to ‘award sale’ destinations, e.g. one-way San Francisco to Puerta Vallarta currently runs 7500 miles (subject to award space availability).

This also means that “split awards” are now possible — used to be that award space needed to be open in both directions to get an award at the standard mileage price, if it was unavailable one-way you’d need to book at double the miles. Now you just book two one-ways, one at the standard price and one at the higher rule-buster price, in order to do a split award. (Their technology doesn’t seem to automate the pricing and you do need to do two separate awards if you want this option.).

As always, more choices (that don’t foretell future devaluations) are always welcome. Kudos Alaska!

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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