And because I can no longer trust Alaska Airlines to uphold their promises of future benefits, I will reduce my risk and actually tilt decisions away from Alaska Airlines.
They never promised you that.
https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mi...and-conditions
No rights of any kind accrue in the Mileage Plan program except as specifically defined herein. There are no exceptions to these conditions of membership except for those set out in this document. Alaska Airlines reserves the right to interpret and apply these conditions of membership in its sole discretion. Alaska Airlines' Mileage Plan program may be modified by Alaska Airlines at any time, or terminated with 180 days' notice.
Nor does any other airline- I will happily point you to similar boilerplate language in any number of FF programs.
Mwenenzi is spot on: it is not particularly logical or rational to assume
any airline will "uphold their promises of future benefits". Programs change all the time.
Recommendations on strategy of changing your FFP are highly dependent on your travel patterns, fare classes you buy, your originating airport, and what benefits you value. You have provided none of this information. It is hard to say anything other than "I guess burn what you can" to what you have posted; personally, if you want to "tilt decisions away from Alaska Airlines", I would just status match and leave the GGUs and companion certificate to go fallow-
anything you spend on Alaska is unlikely to help you with earning status on another airline, which seems to be your goal, but other than that, burning miles and dropping the credit card/lounge pass is fine. I also think actively tilting away probably does not maximize your current value as opposed to just being neutral and maximizing benefits for 2019 (with perhaps a bias to any program you think suits your frequent flyer needs), but you do you. I'd probably keep the credit card if a companion fare for $99 and a free checked bag seemed worth it. It's a low-cost option to always have Alaska as a possible option for travel without needing to be "loyal" to them.
My strategy, SEA-based, 2019 MVPG:
- match to WN A-List once I have flights lined up to retain the status
- obtain AS credit card (possibly other travel credit cards as well)
- don't actually aggressively spend AS mileage balance down (it's low five digits anyways), but use AS going forward like AV, as a mileage "piggy bank" for premium class redemptions
- use WN for <3 hour nonstops, and AS/DL/UA/AA/B6 for longer flights as appropriate. NK might even be an option sometimes.
- don't shoot for status except on WN, all flights are now a case-by-case benefit ("do I want F/premium Y, a chacked bag")
The airlines want to value me on what ticket I want to buy today. Two can play that game.