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?
It’s not Alaska’s inventory to be stingy or generous with. It’s 100% other airlines deciding what to make available. That’s what you’re missing. Alaska doesn’t decide anything here.
I would point out that you’re searching AFTER the US opened up to EU/UK tourism in November. This has unequivocally spiked demand. I can also tell you there was business class inventory earlier in 2021 that I booked for summer 2022 some time ago, because I was anticipating demand spiking once the US opened borders.
First inventory on BA generally hasn’t been there because they’re actively reducing it fleetwide: the way they are fitting the new J lie flat suites on 777s is going from 14F to 8F. That (and losing the 747 14F cabins) is removing award inventory pretty naturally because there’s just less F seats going around.
You might find some AY J inventory on DFW-HEL, though Alaska hasn’t released a lot of domestic saver inventory to DFW (that is something they’re not generous on; I’d book the longhaul segment and figure it out from there later). Good luck.