Originally Posted by
sfjohn
I have been searching for biz/first awards direct to Europe from SEA in 2022, and I’m finding nothing reasonable. For the BA flights, the surcharges are insane, for EI flights, they want 280k one way, and I don’t see a single seat on Finnair or AA. Am I missing something or is Alaska being incredibly stingy with this award space?
I can't speak for all the airlines, but yes this is quite common. You'll need to look at booking right when availability comes online for the preferred dates. As for AY, AFAIK they rarely make J available for partners. EI is just a joke. AA can be found, but it's not easy and will usually require connecting somewhere. Searching segment by segment is the recommended approach. IB is a new one and I don't have any intel on them.
Some people will say AS negotiated a bad deal with each airline and hence the poor availability. To me it seems more like all airlines are stingy with opening up premium seats for partners.