I've never convinced anyone I'm traveling with to 'pony up' to F... ;)

Decent value IMO...

I would pony up for F if we are flying from the east coast to Hawaii in F :) DCA-OGG in F is the same price as SEA-OGG :D

Alright we'll do it sometime ;)

Well, its close but not exactly the same. The longer haul(most east coast and AK) first class fares to Hawaii connecting in SEA are usually ~ $700 ($676 or $701 before taxes) while the SEA-OGG or HNL first fares are about $550. Still a deal for a x-country first flight for only an additional $150.
For example:
11/14
DCA-OGG -- $701+
SEA-OGG -- $551+
Some other cities like MCO are more, usually ~$800++.

Redeeming Mileage Plan
 

I'm kind of new to Mileage Plan, trying to figure out a couple things.

Firstly, are you allowed to mix and match as many partners as you want for an award?
From looking at the award chart its kind of confusing, each partner has their own required mileage...

Secondly, can I fly BA, North America-Australia using Mileage Plan? That would be the ultimate in value for miles...

Thanks for any tips.

AS does not allow mixing of partners. The only mixing allowed is they will get you to the US gateway city on AS/QX so you can hop on the partner flight.

You can't do a BA award to Australia either. I wish you could since i'm trying to get there from BOS. It would be so much quicker for me to fly through Europe. The Australia awards are US-Australia and US-Asia - australia. the only airlines allowed are, Qantas, Cathay Pacific, Air Pacific, Delta & Korean Air (With Korean Air's blackout dates make it almost impossible)

fs
 

You are limited to one partner plus Alaska/Horizon.

As in flying North America-London-Australia? BA is not listed on Alaska's Australia pricing page. The partner desk may be able to book it for you as two awards with two fuel surcharges, that is a total shot in the dark though.

Just to provide further clarification, you book a round-trip award on a single partner carrier (i.e. Cathay Pacific OR Qantas OR Korean)--no mixing and matching, as described above. Where Alaska comes in is: If you cannot find a flight on the partner carrier leaving directly from your originating city, then Alaska will provide you with a connection to the international departure gateway. For example, if you are looking to fly Qantas from Anchorage, since Qantas does not serve Anchorage, the Partner Desk agents will book you on Alaska to LAX or San Francisco and then Qantas from there to Sydney. This does not cost any more mileage.

Unfortunately, the award option between North America and Australia on British was pulled about two or three years ago. I was fortunate to have been able to book it before the award was removed, and it was indeed quite the experience (and an exceptional value). However, I look forward to trying Cathay one of these days, since reportedly their product is superior to BA's. Cathay would still be an excellent value. :)

BA awards NA to Australia went bye bye in 2008. See:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/alask...ustralia+award

As others have pointed out, you can use AS/QX to get to the gateway city, but cannot combine various partners in one award. The agents tend to get pretty creative on finding those routes and gateway cities...and don't forget stopovers are allowed on most award reservations...there's nothing stoping you from making a non traditional city (AUS, SAN, MCO) your gateway city and visiting friends on your way... Lastly, there is speculation that we may see one way award options with some partners in the future. I would guess maybe Delta and American, but likely not the international carriers. This might make it easier to find space via one way tickets to Europe or Latin America and essentially do a combined itinerary as separate one-ways...however, this remains to be seen.

As for your second question, I think that this used to be possible, but was removed as an option 2-3 years ago. I'm sure our moderator jackal will pipe in here, as I believe he did the BA award to AUS via London in the past. (Edit: looks like he beat me to the punch).

Yeah, I hope AS can make this happen with DL/AA and allow us to mix cabins [J outbound Y return, etc]

Another tip to help find award space [especially in the premium cabin], is AS allows open-jaw itineraries as long as it is on the same airline and both cities are in the same zone...

I.E. I booked LAX-LHR on the outbound and FRA-LAX on the return on DL.

It is very common to find award space on the outbound, but the return is not available or the other way around. So, by using the multi-city option it makes it easier to find award space.

OK, folks, we've got a bunch of enthusiastic, eager Ambassadors and other helpful forum members cruising through this thread like piranhas looking for fresh meat.

Let's feed them some additional questions before they start gnawing on each other. ;)

Are you saying our forum is TOO helpful? :p

OK, in the spirit of the recently-concluded World Series, I'll dish up a hanging curveball:

I've done what I consider my best to divine the meaning of most of the acronyms used here on FT. One, however, still has me befuddled and that would be the acronym FO. It apparently has something to do with elite status on Delta. However, when I went to the DL web site and looked up their elite statuses, I could find no reference to FO or anything in long form that would contract to such an abbreviation.

So, please advise what FO stands for.

I've started the clock. It's ticking..... :p

Wirelessly posted (beckoa\'s PWP wonderous poster: BlackBerry9000/4.6.0.304 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

This is DL's internal code for Silver Medallion, their base elite tier. Back in the day it is rumored to originate from Flying Orchid, DL's first elite program of sorts. But well before my time ;)