Apr 5, 2014, 3:23 pm
Last edit by: eponymous_coward
Emirates award guide using Alaska Airlines miles
Routing Rules:
All trips must start or end in North America.
One open jaw and one stopover allowed on each one-way award.
No fees for changes/cancellations prior to 60 days from departure.
North American Gateway Cities:
West Coast
Seattle
San Francisco
Los Angeles
Central
Chicago
Dallas
Houston
East Coast
Boston
New York (JFK)
Orlando (Effective September 1, 2015)
Washington DC (IAD)
Canada
Toronto
Award Chart Links*:
Middle East & Africa
Asia
Europe
*If region is not listed on chart its not available.
Perks
Chauffeur Drive NOT Available
Car service is not available for all Business Class and First Class passengers on Alaska Airlines ticketed award tickets on Emirates flights (as of Jan 2015). The chauffeur will not confirm if you use the EK website for this, though the website makes it look you can make a reservation.
Lounges
Access is available for all passengers traveling in Business and First Class. Not all cities have lounges and many may be operated by a Partner. There have been some reports of people having an issue accessing the Dubai lounges as the tickets may appear in their system as non-revenue employee travel. This is not as much of a problem as it used to be but in case it comes up please advise the lounge attendant that you are on an Alaska Airlines award.
Dubai Connect
AS Awards on EK do not qualify for Dubai Connect, which is the service that offers the free hotel.
Tricks to find Transoceanic availability
Instead of performing a blanket, i.e. SEA-DXB search, perform: SEA-MED.
Madinah is a destination that is only served by EK. Consequently, if there is availability, only EK will show up in the calendar results.
Routing Rules:
All trips must start or end in North America.
One open jaw and one stopover allowed on each one-way award.
No fees for changes/cancellations prior to 60 days from departure.
North American Gateway Cities:
West Coast
Seattle
San Francisco
Los Angeles
Central
Chicago
Dallas
Houston
East Coast
Boston
New York (JFK)
Orlando (Effective September 1, 2015)
Washington DC (IAD)
Canada
Toronto
Award Chart Links*:
Middle East & Africa
Asia
Europe
*If region is not listed on chart its not available.
Perks
Chauffeur Drive NOT Available
Car service is not available for all Business Class and First Class passengers on Alaska Airlines ticketed award tickets on Emirates flights (as of Jan 2015). The chauffeur will not confirm if you use the EK website for this, though the website makes it look you can make a reservation.
Lounges
Access is available for all passengers traveling in Business and First Class. Not all cities have lounges and many may be operated by a Partner. There have been some reports of people having an issue accessing the Dubai lounges as the tickets may appear in their system as non-revenue employee travel. This is not as much of a problem as it used to be but in case it comes up please advise the lounge attendant that you are on an Alaska Airlines award.
Dubai Connect
AS Awards on EK do not qualify for Dubai Connect, which is the service that offers the free hotel.
Tricks to find Transoceanic availability
Instead of performing a blanket, i.e. SEA-DXB search, perform: SEA-MED.
Madinah is a destination that is only served by EK. Consequently, if there is availability, only EK will show up in the calendar results.
Consolidated Emirates (EK) awards availability/booking/routing thread
Aug 14, 2014, 1:36 pm
#931
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: DFW
Programs: AA 1M
Posts: 31,475
Aug 16, 2014, 7:53 pm
#932
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: TUS, SEA, OTP, OMR
Posts: 868
I love that AS has been really good thus far in refusing YQ on partner awards (excluding BA, of course). Yes, the booking issues are annoying. But as long as AS will long sell them, I'd rather have sketchy search and no YQ, than easy search but hundreds in fees on the awards.
Aug 18, 2014, 10:53 pm
#933
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: LAX
Programs: General Awesome Guy
Posts: 91
I've booked 3 AS EK F awards (LAX=>SEZ; CPT=>LAX; LAX=>MLE) this year with dates +/- 3 days desired travel time. Looking again for round four, I feel greedy! I can't find anything, and I think this game is done.
Aug 18, 2014, 11:02 pm
#934
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: SEA
Programs: AS MVP
Posts: 21
It looks like I may just have gotten an F seat on the DAR-DXB leg of my trip home from Africa in November when EF was just showing Z1. I'm currently booked on a mixed award ticket in Y from DAR-DXB and in J from DXB-SEA. I've been checking periodically for availability to upgrade to at least J on the DAR-DXB leg. Tonight my search on as.com came back with J availability on both legs. I called and they couldn't see it. Got a supervisor involved--couldn't see it. And interestingly EF wasn't showing J on the DAR-DXB leg, but it was showing Z1, and as.com showed a mixed cabin award available--F on DAR-DXB, J on DXB-SEA. But she couldn't see or book that either. She suggested I try to book it online and then cancel my existing ticket (I have enough miles to do that). So I did and it went through, and I have an EK record locator in addition to the Alaska one. The Emirates site shows my reservation but not yet an e-ticket number (I know it can take at least a few hours), so I'm going to wait for that to show up before I cancel my existing award ticket.
I do understand that F on the DAR-DXB route isn't all that exciting (no suites, etc) but it's better than coach, and therefore worth the additional 22.5K miles to me (and who knows, maybe F will open up on the DXB-SEA leg sometime before my flight--I won't be holding my breath however!).
Hope these are helpful data points on both the phantom availability problem and as.com sometimes being able to "see" F availability even when there's just Z1.
I do understand that F on the DAR-DXB route isn't all that exciting (no suites, etc) but it's better than coach, and therefore worth the additional 22.5K miles to me (and who knows, maybe F will open up on the DXB-SEA leg sometime before my flight--I won't be holding my breath however!).
Hope these are helpful data points on both the phantom availability problem and as.com sometimes being able to "see" F availability even when there's just Z1.
Aug 19, 2014, 1:41 am
#935
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: LAX/PVG
Programs: HH G, MR/SPG G, IHG Plat, Club Carlson G, National Exec
Posts: 191
It looks like I may just have gotten an F seat on the DAR-DXB leg of my trip home from Africa in November when EF was just showing Z1. I'm currently booked on a mixed award ticket in Y from DAR-DXB and in J from DXB-SEA. I've been checking periodically for availability to upgrade to at least J on the DAR-DXB leg. Tonight my search on as.com came back with J availability on both legs. I called and they couldn't see it. Got a supervisor involved--couldn't see it. And interestingly EF wasn't showing J on the DAR-DXB leg, but it was showing Z1, and as.com showed a mixed cabin award available--F on DAR-DXB, J on DXB-SEA. But she couldn't see or book that either. She suggested I try to book it online and then cancel my existing ticket (I have enough miles to do that). So I did and it went through, and I have an EK record locator in addition to the Alaska one. The Emirates site shows my reservation but not yet an e-ticket number (I know it can take at least a few hours), so I'm going to wait for that to show up before I cancel my existing award ticket.
I do understand that F on the DAR-DXB route isn't all that exciting (no suites, etc) but it's better than coach, and therefore worth the additional 22.5K miles to me (and who knows, maybe F will open up on the DXB-SEA leg sometime before my flight--I won't be holding my breath however!).
Hope these are helpful data points on both the phantom availability problem and as.com sometimes being able to "see" F availability even when there's just Z1.
I do understand that F on the DAR-DXB route isn't all that exciting (no suites, etc) but it's better than coach, and therefore worth the additional 22.5K miles to me (and who knows, maybe F will open up on the DXB-SEA leg sometime before my flight--I won't be holding my breath however!).
Hope these are helpful data points on both the phantom availability problem and as.com sometimes being able to "see" F availability even when there's just Z1.
Aug 19, 2014, 7:15 am
#936
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: BOS/ORH
Programs: AS 75K
Posts: 18,323
You might also want to have at look SFO-DXB (A380 suites, showers, and bar from Dec on). There are tons of availability next spring, and you can add a SEA-SFO on AS. I haven't checked other months, but if you can find something, that would be tremendous value for the extra 22.5K.
Aug 19, 2014, 4:24 pm
#937
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: LAX/PVG
Programs: HH G, MR/SPG G, IHG Plat, Club Carlson G, National Exec
Posts: 191
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Aug 19, 2014, 5:47 pm
#938
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: BOS/ORH
Programs: AS 75K
Posts: 18,323
Aug 19, 2014, 8:22 pm
#939
Suspended
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: SEA, FLL, Martha’s Vineyard
Programs: AS MVPGold75K, Hilton Gold, IHG Platinum, Pan Am million-miler
Posts: 2,019
Trying to find award availability SEA-KIX on EK in the entire month of November on AS's website. All EK and KE awards are coming up in J. And the best part is when you click the segments in J, sometimes as we all have (annoyingly) experienced the long-haul is many times in Y.
Have we figured out what the best option is? Or if phoning the AS award call center if we know an F seat is available through experflyer on either EK or KE?
Have we figured out what the best option is? Or if phoning the AS award call center if we know an F seat is available through experflyer on either EK or KE?
Aug 19, 2014, 8:46 pm
#940
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Treasure Coast, FL
Programs: DL Diamond, Marriott LT Plat, HH Diamond, Avis Preferred Plus, National Executive
Posts: 4,578
Trying to find award availability SEA-KIX on EK in the entire month of November on AS's website. All EK and KE awards are coming up in J. And the best part is when you click the segments in J, sometimes as we all have (annoyingly) experienced the long-haul is many times in Y.
Have we figured out what the best option is? Or if phoning the AS award call center if we know an F seat is available through experflyer on either EK or KE?
Have we figured out what the best option is? Or if phoning the AS award call center if we know an F seat is available through experflyer on either EK or KE?
Seemed to be a decent amount of availability in F from JFK and DFW.
Aug 19, 2014, 9:39 pm
#941
Join Date: Nov 2011
Posts: 6,385
Trying to find award availability SEA-KIX on EK in the entire month of November on AS's website. All EK and KE awards are coming up in J. And the best part is when you click the segments in J, sometimes as we all have (annoyingly) experienced the long-haul is many times in Y.
Have we figured out what the best option is? Or if phoning the AS award call center if we know an F seat is available through experflyer on either EK or KE?
Have we figured out what the best option is? Or if phoning the AS award call center if we know an F seat is available through experflyer on either EK or KE?
Aug 19, 2014, 10:40 pm
#942
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: LAX/PVG
Programs: HH G, MR/SPG G, IHG Plat, Club Carlson G, National Exec
Posts: 191
It looks like if you call later in the evening, there is a better chance you'll get a capable Boise-based agent who would manual sell (albeit based on a tiny sample size). I've also read several accounts in this forum of the Boise call center being competent and helpful. On another occasion, I got a SEA-based agent to manual sell ~7:30 PT, having struck out earlier in the afternoon with a couple of other SEA-based agent.
At the end of the day, I guess it's a bit of a trial and error either way: a) if AS.com availability is real or phantom. b) if the AS agent would manual sell EK.com/EF availability. You won't be able to get a DXB stop-over on AS.com, though.
Good luck!
Last edited by moler; Aug 19, 2014 at 10:54 pm
Aug 20, 2014, 8:06 am
#943
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: BOS/ORH
Programs: AS 75K
Posts: 18,323
Aug 20, 2014, 8:44 am
#944
Join Date: Dec 2009
Programs: WN A-list, Hyatt Glob, HH DM, Marriott Plat
Posts: 434
Aug 20, 2014, 11:19 am
#945
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: SEA
Programs: AS MVP
Posts: 21
Moler, the mixed cabin F/J award I just booked on AS.com that I posted about on Monday includes a 2 night DXB stopover. I used the multi-city function to pull up flights.