Yesterday both One Mile at a Time and Live and Let’s Fly covered a troubling new restriction on redeeming Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles.

Alaska stopped letting members use their points for awards on most of their airline partners for close-in travel. They simply did not show award space that was being made available for anything within 3 days of booking.

• This is a new restriction on award seats being offered by the partner airlines.
  
• Award seats that are available and bookable by all other partners couldn’t be booked by Alaska Airlines members if it was too close to travel.
  
• For instance, Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific awards that you can book using miles from American Airlines, British Airways, and more simply cannot be booked using Alaska’s miles.

Alaska reservations agents confirmed that this is policy not to allow booking of these awards, even though the space was being offered by partner airlines. When I searched it did not seem to apply to American Airlines or Qatar Airways.

This is a big deal on several levels.

• Miles can be most valuable for last-minute travel, where fares are often highest
  
• On some airlines, the best availability can be found close to departure, when the airline is sure which seats are going to go unsold
  
• And many members book flights to lock in a trip, and then try to improve their trip when more convenient itineraries open up close to travel.

It’s even a bigger deal than this, though, because it also blocks passengers when they’re somewhere abroad looking for a new way to get home. They need to change their trip, perhaps getting stranded due to flight cancellations or illness, and they turn to the miles in their loyalty program for help. So they have to sit for several extra days? What if they’re trying to use their points to get out of a country that’s suddenly become dangerous?

Wait til he learns the miles will be no good on partners booked within 72 hours of travel https://t.co/eCTlZNdR9j

— gary leff (@garyleff) November 13, 2024

I’ve been working to learn what was going on here for over a day. Fortunately, according to Alaska Airlines, this restriction will be lifted within days. An airline spokesperson tells me,

The 72-hour restriction we currently have in place for award redemptions with our partners is short-term – it’ll last only days and not months. We understand its impact on some of our guests’ travel planning and we apologize for the confusion. We’re always focused on ensuring we have the most compelling proposition in the market. We know that’s not possible with a limitation on close-in bookings.

Clearly this restriction is in response to some fraud issues they must be dealing with. People use miles to book last minute travel, so that they can complete the trip using stolen or sold miles before they’re caught.

However this is an incredibly blunt tool that harms the membership broadly. There are often much more targeted approaches. For instance, focus on the accounts most likely to engage in fraud, or the routes most affected by fraud. Focus on China (either travel to and from China, or Africa, or accounts based there). Exempt elites and co-brand cardmembers!

It’s good to see that Alaska Airlines doesn’t see this restriction as viable for more than a few days, and plans to lift it.