Originally Posted by
WillTravel4Food
I think the other thing to note here is that it's often quite difficult to find AS award space in the right fare class to add onto an int'l partner award. You should be prepared to find your overwater leg, then hopefully find the connection. If not, book the overwater leg then purchase the connection into SEA. This is what we ended up doing for this coming April SEA-ITM. The outbound had T space to get to SFO. The return didn't, requiring us to purchase the last leg of the journey.
That is a given for us originating from East Coast. AS never shows any saver space on its old America West transcon routes, not even coach seats in 95% of the redemption. So we always paid the positioning flights both ways. Consider the miles required by AS were much less than AA's, and our positioning flights often gave us an opportunity to visit friends, we did not mind much in the past. Now it is a different calculation after the devaluation.