Loyalty Lobby flags an update to Alaska Airlines award rules that says,
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.
This strikes him as “somewhat weird” and suggests he’s never seen such a thing. Meanwhile One Mile at a Time says it “very much counters the industry norm, as I’ve never heard of another airline not letting you switch out frequent flyer numbers based on the airline through which you ticket an award.”
I’m a little bit surprised by their surprise. The rule is saying that you can’t redeem Alaska miles for a ticket and then use your status with a program like American AAdvantage or British Airways Executive Club for benefits.
And it’s actually pretty standard in oneworld. For instance, American Airlines does not allow you to switch out your frequent flyer number either to,
- accrue miles with a partner after you’ve used benefits of your AAdvantage elite status
- use AAdvantage elite benefits when traveling on American through a partner award redemption.
Here’s what the American AAdvantage terms and conditions say,
You cannot accrue partner airline miles with your partner frequent flyer number if you have already used your AAdvantage® number to obtain any AAdvantage® Rewards and Benefits such as First or Business Class upgrades, baggage fee waivers, priority boarding, access to Preferred seats or complimentary access to Preferred / Main Cabin Extra seats.
Since American Airlines agents aren’t supposed to help you swap out your account number in these circumstances, many folks have used the Finnair website over the years to change frequent flyer accounts in an award, for instance a BA-issued ticket for travel on American where I want to use my American status.
Redeeming British Airways Avios for travel on American Airlines, and wanting to use your American Airlines elite status for extra legroom seats, priority boarding, and free checked bags (or even upgrade), is something that folks have done for years but is actually against the rules.
In practice there’s not a lot of enforcement of this, but that doesn’t mean there won’t ever be. I certainly don’t expect Alaska Airlines to be involved if you redeem their miles for travel on Qantas and use benefits from a British Airways status account. However I wouldn’t be surprised to see it harder to redeem Alaska miles for travel on Alaska and have it become more difficult to swap in your BA or American number to take advantage of status from one of those programs for your trip.
@ Gary — This is consistent with another AS policy — if you are flying on a paid AS ticket, you cannot enter an AS lounge using OW status from another airline (eg, Finnair)unless you are crediting the flight to that airline. I have been turned away at the AS lounge twice on this rule, so they do mean business.
Once I tried, the online system wouldn’t let me use my Alaska miles on an American flight. Confused.
For over 15 years and continuing into 2023, I have been redeeming British Airways points for travel on American Airlines and used my American Airlines elite status for benefits on BA-issued award tickets for AA-operated flights. And I have done it a huge number of times while sticking to the BA and AA websites.
This has been the policy at Alaska for a long time, as long as I’ve been using miles with them online. Maybe they officially added it to the T&Cs lately, but AFAIK it’s never been possible to change your FFN online when booking an award ticket with Alaska. There are some various hacks/workarounds you can do but if you called them up in the past they wouldn’t do it over the phone, citing this policy.
I had no idea this was against the rules! I’ve never had an agent deny a request to swap out numbers. When I book AA with avios, I call AA immediately after booking and the phone agent always swaps out the number. In fact, I have been upgraded on tickets booked with Avios. Likewise, BA has always added my AA number after booking with Asia Miles, and Iberia has always added by AA number after booking with Avios (through Iberia).
@Gene – this is indeed a oneworld thing, not even Alaska-specific
@GUWonder and others – as I write, it’s been possible to do it but it’s still been against formal rules
SO Alaska has posted it, I don’t know that it’ll be enforced, but it’s really nothing new or revolutionary is my point
@ Gary — Example? I get into any AA lounge without issue using Finnair Platinum status on domestic paid AA flights when crediting to AS.
@Gary It’s possible to switch out your Alaska FFN when booking a partner award if you go the partner airline’s website and such changes are permitted by the partner.
It has never been possible (as far as I am aware) to switch out your Alaska FFN if you are using Alaska miles to book an Alaska airline flight. If you are in this scenario and call up Alaska customer support asking to switch your FFN they will tell you its not permitted. You are right this is not a new policy but it was in force well before they joined OneWorld (it never worked back when AA and Alaska had some limited reciprocal benefits in 2019ish era).
Did it last week in seattle
Gate agent swapped and entered my AA number on AS award and got group 1 boarding, no issue
@Doug the system has a lot of holes, you can change the FFN during check in on the app (but not on the website) but as an official policy, the T&Cs simply codify what had long been the unwritten policy. Alaska (historically) hasn’t really cared much to plug the holes so we’ll see if this is a sign they are going to get stricter about it in the future.
Yes, this is totally doable.
* American *usually* won’t swap your account number in your reservation for you
* You can do this yourself
* But also generally get into *lounges* without having the account number of the partner that grants you access in your reservation
My only point here is that this rule from Alaska is not new, it is unevenly enforced (at most) and this language change may not signal a shift in status quo. Perhaps I was unclear.
I regularly use BA Avios to book domestic AA flights because of the cheaper redemption and ease of earning Avios. Every time after booking, I call the EP line and have them swap in my AA number so I can get MCE seats. I’ve done this dozens of times and have never had an agent give me a hard time about it.
It’s not always a matter of “swapping out”. If the member of any program redeems miles for a ticket for someone other than the member, the default is no FF number in the reservation.
Which specifi AA term does it violate to get a BA award ticket issued for an AA flight without any frequent flyer numbers for the passenger in the booking at the time of ticketing but the passenger then choosing to add the AA elite status frequent flyer number between ticketing but before travel and then leaving it set after an initial entry?
Rinsf,
That is correct for the passenger FFN’s field in the record. And adding in an entry into an empty field is not a violation of AA’s terms as far as I know. AS’s terms are of course different than AA’s terms. And BA has its own terms too.
Just returned from an AA award flight. Having no status whatsoever with AA (but MVP status with Alaska which is One World Ruby) and needing a better boarding position to assure room for my carryon luggage, AA telephone agent gave me no problem with switching out my loyalty number.
I’ve been furious about the situation since Alaska joined one world.
So thank you for posting this topic Gary!
Seems all of a sudden the Alaska biggest blunder of their idiotic alliance rules are staring to go viral regarding the issue.Though the issue has been going on for some time now.
Alaska can go suck a lemon (thats being polite)
I left over Alaska’s repeat refusal to put in my AA number when using Alaska miles.I now not only stopped flying them for revenue but no longer earn miles in their program.
Their miles are mostly worthless to me.They are idiots sorry for the harsh words
I can like their front lines but their program executives should be fired for poor decision making
They are clueless to what an alliance is and what drives the loyalty in one.
AA is great about putting in the FF number of my choice as is BA or Qantas
Either you are a part of One World or you are an imposter Alaska is an imposter
Alaska gets far less seats than other one world partners typically and you cant combine a Qantas award and American flight on the same flight.
There are other restrictions that come with using Alaska miles
Many awards are higher priced and they charge a partner award fee and they have inferior availability
So these fools thinking blocking one world elite benefits using their miles is good for them
Good luck to them.They are one sided and only honor paid tickets for benefits
They win the dumb cluck award of the decade.
Happy to provide additional data points. I agree completely with GUWonder et all. Today, for example, I flew on an Avios ticket to Ohio. 24 hours in advance, the agent swapped out my numbers so I could reserve an MCE seat and then I cleared the waitlist for a free upgrade to first with only gold status; a big win!
Interesting. I was on a paid AS flt, steerage. I asked if I could use OneWorld status to board earlier, but I said I wanted to credit AS miles. Gate agent entered my AA # and saw my OneWorld status. He said I could board with group ‘A’ even tho my boarding pass was group ‘D’. He said I would still earn AS miles (vs AA miles). Now not sure…
I was on a paid AS flt, steerage. I asked if I could use OneWorld status to board earlier, but I said I wanted to credit AS miles. Gate agent entered my AA # and saw my OneWorld status. He said I could board with group ‘A’ even tho my boarding pass was group ‘D’. He said I would still earn AS miles (vs AA miles). Now not sure…
The once valuable Alaska miles have become all but useless to me. Surely for those seeking short haul sweet spot might find value in them but for those seeking premium cabins it’s nearly impossible to find award seats anymore and if you do the redemption rate is high. Even for those international short haul flights that are available in economy you can’t find business class seats at all on any day (eg HKG-TPE). I bought a lot of miles in 2019 and booked a trip for travel in 2020 from LAX-HKG (CX F) with a stop in HKG and onward to AKL (CX J) all for 70K miles but COVID struck and I ended up with these miles that I haven’t been able to use due to non-existent award seats in J and I do not believe that I ever will again. What a waste of money!
“Pretty standard in oneworld”? You’ve named AA as the only other carrier. Do you have any further examples to substantiate your “pretty standard” claim?
Seems to be defeating the whole idea of OneWorld – partner airline elites should be able to use their OneWorld status benefits.
Do Skyteam and Star Alliance follow this bizarre policy?
Well…I can’t even bring up my AS award tickets (on AS metal) using AY or RJ to perform the time-honored designation to AA. There is still a workaround but it’s becoming much more difficult and the redemption has to be carefully planned to facilitate the workaround. So maybe the policy is not itself new but the new limitations certainly enforce it in a new way for many.