Originally Posted by
ryandc99
The best way to do this is to do a multi city award search for award tickets. Put in the exact dates of the individual legs of each flight into a separate line. For example, if you were going OAK-ANC, you would split it out as OAK-SEA, 6/1 then SEA-ANC on 6/1 and so forth, duplicating exactly what you see on the AS website. Also check the box for direct flights only. This will take you to a search where you need to pick the same AS flights by flight number/times, and it will price out at the level shown on the Alaska website. I believe this only works for the Super Saver (lowest level) tickets Alaska offers. Using this method I was able to book a ticket a few days ago.
Very good instructions.
I do this quite often after going to alaskaair.com first to find the exact flights and dates that award seats are available. What is shown as super saver award availability on alaskaair.com will be available using DL miles. Very very seldom do I need to call DL in order to book AS flights. Using multi-city as described above works like a charm.
Hint: sometimes alaskaair.com shows legal connections using their miles that are not legal using DL miles. So be careful. Once alaskaair.com showed something like MSP-BOI-SEA-ANC for super saver using AS miles. But that routing was not permitted using DL miles. Also, the stopover/connection rules with AS miles is more liberal/generous. So a flight MSP-SEA-ANC with a 5 hour layover in both directions found on alaskaair.com is fine if you were using AS miles, but is not OK using DL miles (since with DL any connection >4 hours is a "stopover" and you are only allowed one stopover per ticket).