Originally Posted by sdsearch

I don't think there's a consistent answer to this. I may depend on the cabin, and it may depend on the specific flight.

Technically they come from separate buckets, but Alaska could be (without telling us when) "linking" two buckets in some way behind the scenes.

For a more obvious example, if they have both outright award seats up front and upgrade awards for moving up front available at a given moment, using up one may decrease the amount on the other, even though they are certainly separate buckets (you can tell they are separate buckets because sometimes only one or the other of those is available).

But there are way more levels of paid prices (especially in economy) with way more rules (such as 14- or 21- day advance purchase, etc), which is completely different from how awards work. So there is not even a concept of "low price" awards in the same sense as "low price" tickets, but the "low price" of awards may be one of just two or three prices, but the "low price" of paid tickets may be one of a dozen or so different prices.

So if there are any relationships at all, they have to be complicated, and not simple like you proposed.