Originally Posted by The Narwhal

The only point I think worth making is that the super high redemptions are NOT saver fares. My understanding is that Alaska offers these in addition to standard saver redemptions at a higher price to compensate for the additional cost to AS. So this is voluntary on AS's behalf - the alternative is there would simply be nothing available at all once all saver fares are booked. While I would never pay these prices for a reward flight, at least its available to folks who are willing to. And in some cases they aren't totally out of line (e.g. QR at 215k miles on a flight that might cost north of $5k).