airplanegeek

Someone suggested I call mileage plan for access to more flights. Is that true? In this self-serve world, would it really benefit me to speak to a human?

My tentative itinerary is MCO-SYD/BNE/MEL (any combo of these 3 will do), and for under 100K r/t. I've got almost no limitations to travel dates (summer 2016), but everything bookable online routes me through SEA with a layover there too. Ideally I fly nonstop MCO-LAX/SFO. Any thoughts on improving the routing?

tonei

There's a couple of partners that don't show up on the Alaska website, but otherwise you're generally not going to get anything different by calling unless there's something allowable that you can't get the website to do.

You can't mix partners on a routing (it's Alaska + one partner per direction), which is why it's sending you through SEA because you can't for example fly AA to LAX and then Qantas to SYD or MEL. Your best bet for a one stop itinerary would probably be AA or DL MCO-LAX-SYD, though Alaska doesn't list AA on its Australia award chart so I'm not sure if it's bookable.

You might also look at buying a ticket to a city where you can fly on Korean, Cathay, or Qantas without having to connect through Seattle.

LwoodY2K

If you're interested in flying on Cathay Pacific, you need to call in because their flights do not show up on AS' site at all. Other than that, online should mostly be the same as calling.

As for the routing, a given direction of an award booked on AS miles can only have one partner. If you want to get to Australia using AS miles, your options are Cathay Pacific, Delta, Fiji Airways, Korean Air, or Qantas. (Note that American might join that list at some point since they're going to start flying there, but they don't have anything listed at https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mi...australia.aspx yet).
So, given the options to get there, I'm 98% sure that the only one flying to Orlando is Delta. So, to get to an airport where one of them does fly you have to use Alaska to get to one of their gateway airports. Alaska only flies to San Diego and Seattle from there, so that's why the routing features those cities.

cleobasset

Strong suggestion: increase your miles slightly, buying miles if necessary, and you can fly business with some excellent cabins. If you redeem for coach you will be paying much more than buying a ticket. With long trips, the better cabins are worth it, using miles.

fishywang

The only way to fly this route is you can get award space for AA's MCO-LAX-SYD. That's maybe possible for coach, I don't think you can get it for any premium class for next summer, unless you are very very very lucky.

PDXPremier

If you're flying Qantas, the best you can generally hope for is premium economy....Cathay is doable, especially if you book coach and wait for J or F to open up at the last minute which hasn't been happening quite as predictably during this past month, but supposedly October was just an unusually busy travel month to/from HKG.

Madone59

That can only happen if you connect to AA metal to OZ, which will be really hard to find. If you want to connect to QF you need to take AS Metal MCO-SEA-LAX/DFW/SFO OR MCO-SAN//LAX and get your self from SAN-LAX (cheap o/w rental car).

Dieuwer

MIA-DXB-SYD?

PABE

I do not believe Emirates is an option as there isn't an award chart for EK to Australia.
http://www.alaskaair.com/content/mil...australia.aspx

CDKing

That's dead according to the blogger

ericdc98201

In my experience calling in is usually well worth the call center fee. I almost always get a much better routing working with an agent. The website routings for international flighs frequently have funky routings with long layovers necessitating hotel layovers.

I'd seriously consider using Cathay Pacific. The service is a cut above and a layover in Hong Kong is worth the longer flight times.