Originally Posted by channa
I understand your point, but I think you're looking at it as a MP member trying to redeem.
AS probably views the partnership as a whole, and I'm certain the CO partnership drives significant AS business, whereby the mileage redemption is small potatoes. There are a LOT of CO flyers who can and do fly AS as a result of the partnership. If AS-CO would divorce, then yes, AS would lose the CO mileage redemption (no biggie), but AS would also risk losing the revenue by that large group of CO customers (biggie).
As for CO's redemption philosphy, I doubt AS could pressure CO into chainging their mileage redemption philosophy. It's just as bad for CO members, so why would they open it up for someone else's members? CO thinks they're better off paying for a partner's seat and selling their own than giving it away for miles. In fact, when CO joined SkyTeam, they wrote down a several million dollar charge just to buy partner reward seats because they knew it would be cash out, not cash in transaction, in terms of mileage redemption.
So whats the point of listing CO as a redemption partner if no one can ever redeem? The mileage plan personnel laugh and chuckle "yea right" when you call them and ask for a Continental itinerary using your miles. If nothing is available.
You are right that CO members can't even redeem CO flights. That is another topic of discussion, but not this topic.
If Alaska is going to enter into contracts with other airlines to redeem miles then there ought to be some kind of reasonable standard. That should be negotiated up front. Again, an airline like CO is nothing in the PNW, so it needs Alaska more than Alaska needs CO. If Alaska walked on CO, who is going to codeshare with them? United Express? That would be the only option and its PNW network is very small these days....so in the end if someone in Spokane, Vancouver, Bend, etc. wanted to fly through PDX or SEA on CO's EWR flights, they'd be completely out of luck.
Whomever is in charge of the mileage plan should explain and offer insight as to why the relationship with CO is based simply on CO's false and misrepresented situation. There is no way you are going to redeem mileage plan miles on CO (except for the one guy who did it in on a week's notice, thats probably the only available time) By telling us you can, Alaska is clearly misrepresenting the situation.......!