American Airlines is losing most of the value of its Alaska Airlines partnership at the end of the year.
Starting next year you’ll only be able to earn miles and elite qualifying miles for Alaska flights when booking American Airlines codeshares (codeshares are almost always a pain to deal with, and they’re only available on a subset of routes). Reciprocal award redemption and lounge access will remain a part of their relationship.
Now comes word of another loss: American reached out to let me know that their relationship with Jet Airways will end December 31, 2017 as well.
Copyright: boarding1now / 123RF Stock Photo
- AAdvantage mileage-earning will continue for flights through December 31, 2017
- Redemption will be available through December 31, 2017 for flights through end of schedule. You’ll be able to book travel well into 2018, however you won’t be able to change travel onto other Jet Airways flights past December 31.
Note that ticketing of Jet Airways awards (not merely holding a reservation) must be complete by December 31.
Search for Award Space at Delta.com Then Call American to Book:
Toronto – Amsterdam Non-stop 2 Passengers in Business Class, Note That American Charges 57,500 for This Award While Delta Charges 85,000
This is not surprising. Jet Airways, a long-term AAdvantage partner, has been getting closer to Delta. In fact reports are that Delta is negotiating for a 24% stake in the Indian carrier. About six weeks ago Jet Airways named a Delta Senior Vice President as its CEO. Presumably the choice to strengthen ties with Delta over American was made on the Jet Airways side.
This is unfortunate for AAdvantage members. Not only does Jet Airways offer fantastic award availability and a strong product on their Toronto – Amsterdam flight (one of the few transatlantic routes you can regularly redeem AAdvantage miles for without fuel surcharges) but it also deprives American of a partner for Indian domestic flights and to feed India traffic to the airline’s route network. They lost their last Indian partner – Kingfisher – five years ago.
Now would be a particularly opportune time to strengthen their relationships with Gulf carriers Etihad (which owns a significant stake in Jet Airways but which has been exercising less and less control over the carrier in recent times) and Qatar. Both have significant presences in the region and could provide feed from India — better business than fighting a war of politics against them.
Agreed, continued whining about the gulf carriers has become tiresome.
Time to think about how best harness the mutual strengths and needs to capture the opportunities in dynamic emerging markets such as India and elsewhere.
Just wait til Etihad joins Star Alliance.
I STRONGLY caution anyone thinking about flying Jet Airways. My wife and I flew on Jet Airways from Doha to Delhi last fall in business class. The flight was in EVERY WAY inferior to other international business classes — much like intra Europe “business class” on BA — small, uncomfortable seats; minimal recline. Food and beverage were poor.
But the real kicker was that as the plane was pushed back from the gate in Doha, we saw our luggage sitting on a cart (my wife’s luggage is instantly identifiable and unmistakable). We asked the flight attendant to tell the pilot and she would not do so. Sure enough the luggage did not arrive with us In Delhi. The Jet Airways luggage staff there told us the flight was overloaded. Interesting they chose to load lots of other luggage and freight, but not that for business class passengers (of which there were only eight).
We were told the luggage would arrive on the next Jet Airways flight. It didn’t. After two trips back to the airport and numerous phone calls, two days later we still didn’t have our luggage. We enlisted the aid of the Indian firm that was providing a tour guide to us for a portion of our trip. Its president was able to reach a Jet Airways official, but had to call him twice and the second time threaten to use the tour agency’s attorney to sue Jet Airways on our behalf. Finally, 38 hours — more than 3 days — after the arrival of our Jet Airways flight in Delhi, the luggage arrived at our hotel.
Following the procedures provided by Jet Airways, we filed for reimbursement of the expenses we incurred during the time we had no clothes, toiletries, etc. to obtain the basics. Jet Airways offered us $45 each against total expenses of several hundred dollars. We rejected that offer. It is now eight months later, and after a library-full of email correspondence, Jet Airways has yet to give us one thin dime of reimbursement.
I will NEVER, EVER, EVER fly on Jet Airways again, and I will tell our story to any poor, misguided soul who is considering doing so.