Originally Posted by
blast00
Alaska’s reward program has access to all of the partner airlines for BOTH the Skyteam and Oneworld alliance. They also partner with some really useful airlines like Air Pacific, Emirates, Icelandair, etc., all of which can be used to go on some incredible trips. For example, I’m flying in first tomorrow from NYC to South Africa on Cathay Pacific, one of the Alaska partners. Here’s a video of what that’s like. It’s also much cheaper to redeem for Cathay Pacific using Alaska miles than using AA miles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BDJ3jdxFo8.
This is unquestionably false. Alaska is not a member of either alliance. You would not have access to every SkyTeam or OneWorld alliance member. Alaska has their own list of partners. It's a good list, but not nearly what you are imagining.
https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mi...ePlan-partners
Originally Posted by
blast00
Alaska has great phone agents, and they give you 4 system-wide upgrades on Alaska once you get to 50,000 flown miles. You can sell these upgrades for $500. You get no such equivalent unless you fly 100.000 miles on the other airlines.
You have the choice of 4 SWUs at Delta with 75K miles, though those SWUs are not transferable and most consider them not all that useful.
You will also have extremely limited access to awards on Delta, as Alaska members can only book awards on Delta at the "low" level. And we all know how sparse that "low" level inventory is. Access to American award inventory should be decent.
Still, Alaska has a good program. But it would work best if you actually fly Alaska Airlines much of the time.
David