Originally Posted by
jsguyrus
I booked a flight in BA J for Oct 2022 to CDG and beyond, Of course its not directly out of SEA since there is zero J on BA out of Seattle available pretty much the entire last half of 2022. You might try looking for awards out of AA or IB gateways. I have found flights available (like on Finnair out of DFW) but it wont show on a search because there is no low award flights available on AS so getting there requires a different reservation. And yes, BA has expensive surcharges but its way better than paying for J generally speaking.
I found a Finnair flight out of DFW, but the Alaska segment was in coach. The entire first class cabin was empty on all of the flights that day and they won’t release a single award ticket in first. I was looking at Delta and United, which both have a ton of options to get to Europe with one connection with all segments in first/business. I’m not sure why Alaska negotiates so horribly on award availability with their partners, but it’s absolutely ridiculous to be so restrictive compared to the competition. I’ve been noticing Delta sells a lot of routes from SEA in first that are much cheaper than Alaska (flights to PVR have recently been about 50% - 100% more expensive on Alaska). I used to say that I wouldn’t go to Delta because of their Skypesos, but now that I can’t get a decent redemption on Alaska, it doesn’t seem smart to pay more to stay loyal to Alaska.