psychtobe

PDX based

Recent flights on AS very nice. Especially liked my E175 PDX-SLC Return which was quiet, bright, smooth, nice seats. Paid upgrade to F on return and had a nice little cheese plate.

Anyway, I may be able to get 25k miles on AS and partners in a calendar year and achieve MVP.

- would expect the 50% bonus miles to be handy.
- I can often find award travel at the base levels for what I'm looking for.
- I like the new lower price award options for short hops
- I like AS service
- I have priority pass that used to get me into AS BRs but understand that is going away?
- I would sign up for the AS credit card for the companion pass
- obviously PDX-based, most travel to SLC, DFW, HNL, OGG

questions
- I'm used to flying DL to Europe and Asia. What's the comparison on BA, Iberia, and other AS partners?

Any other big picture thoughts?

Honestly if I could be assured a seat on an E175 every flight I'd never fly another airline. So nice.

jinglish

For starters, IB isn't an AS partner, although AY just announced a partnership since they're starting seasonal SFO service. I'm sad to see DL go because of PDX-AMS, but I flew PDX-KEF-HEL on FI last year and rather liked the experience. You won't get any free food, but the the schedule works well (you get to KEF around midnight Pacific time and can then sleep on the connecting flight) and KEF had by far my easiest immigration experience ever, even by Schengen standards. Good fares too: in the off-season you can find sub-$500 round trips to London, with an Iceland stopover if you want. As far as Asia, you'll have to connect through California or YVR, but JL's Y product is fantastic, and I was beyond happy with CX J on a redemption a few months ago.

As a PDX-based MVP who flies exclusively for leisure (and thus competes less with the 75K road warriors), I'm 5/5 on complimentary upgrades this year. So you may end up in first class more often than you'd expect for a bottom-tier elite.

And while DFW is normally a hard route for upgrades from what I've heard, AS is launching PDX-DAL on the Embraer. And since they're 76-seat planes with as many F seats as the -700s and -800s, they're very easy to score upgrades on, as you've experienced.

missamo80

It's not going away. Alaska's limited Priority Pass members to member only, no guests, to reduce crowding problems. You can still run into situations where the lounge will turn you away due to capacity issues.

Neil

AZ Travels the World

Don't forget AA. It's not as extensive of network to Asia, and you'd have to go south to LAX, but AA's new J product is solid. To Europe you have a lot of AA options.

missamo80

I flew AA to NRT via LAX and it was great! Would do AA to Europe over BA any day as well.

Neil

psychtobe

Do I earn full qualifying miles on all these partners?

milypan

Depends on the booking code. For non-refundable economy tickets, generally not. For premium fare tickets, you often earn more than 100% miles. You need to look at the individual partner pages, as it varies by partner (e.g. https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mi...-airlines.aspx).

zebes

If you want to do it all in one fell swoop, you could position to YVR and do the YVR-JNB run on Cathay PE.

YVR-HKG-JNB-HKG-YVR = 26,047 miles. PE on Cathay earns a 110% on AS, so 26047*1.1 = 28651.7.

https://goo.gl/flights/UWgH

eponymous_coward

I don't think any airline status is worth going much out of your way to acquire (certainly not to JNB ), given that these days discount F fares are pretty cheap if you want them.

If your natural travel would get you close, maybe there's a case for it. If you like doing weekend cross-country jaunts or flying some distance for a vacation (and JNB with a HKG stopover sounds fun), sure. But all told, airlines mostly compete on price and schedule these days, and that's probably where your loyalty should lie; your wallet and time.

quemalo

If you're PDX-based but flying across the ocean, I would stick with Delta. From PDX to the main hubs in Europe (LHR, AMS, CDG, FRA), two of them are Delta flights, and the third is Condor. Condor is an Alaska partner, but Delta has a nicer business class. And for flying to the hubs in east-Asia (HND, NRT, ICN, HKG), Delta is the only non-stop, to NRT.

As for the comfort, Delta One isn't bad. AA's new 777-300ER is better, as is CX. BA's seats aren't as comfortable, but has better service. QF has a mix of better and worse, although most of their flights are the old crappy seats. The service is much better though. KE and JL have very private almost mini-suites, although they are very short beds, and in addition JL's flights out of YVR are old and crappy seats.

I like Alaska, and have been flying them since the mid-80s. For a PDX-based international traveller though, I personally wouldn't recommend them. I like the Alaska partners, but needing to connect through SEA/YVR/SFO/LAX would get old for more than a few trips a year.

KnownasEric

I'm in the same boat - thinking of switching from American.

My question is that, when I look on AS' website for award redemption outside the US (i.e. using partners), mostly everything I see is coach. Even partner business/first selections are mixed cabin, where AS flights are first and all partners are coach.

Are international business/first award flights on partners next to zero in availability, or is it just the website not pulling the availability (AA.com is notorious for it's subpar experience with this)?

I'm in SEA.

quemalo

For non-BA partners, you need to either book the flights 330 days in advance, or 5-15 days in advance. If I look at this upcoming Monday for instance, there are tons of flights in all classes from Seattle to HND/NRT. But if you look further out, all the availability drops.

What I do is book Y for the dates I want, and then change it to J or F once those seats become available. This only works if you have status though, otherwise they charge something ridiculous like $125 to change it.

psychtobe

That link is for EQMs, right?

eponymous_coward

And RDMs.

milypan

It gives information for both. EQMs are a subset of RDMs, and apply only to base miles earned and class of service bonus.