With the 2018 AA change

For domestic travel: Starting Jan. 1, 2018, you’ll no longer earn Mileage Plan miles on domestic American Airlines flights that are not marketed by Alaska, which includes all flights numbers beginning with airline code “AA”. In other words, you will no longer earn Alaska Mileage Plan miles for any domestic flights booked directly with American Airlines. The good news is that Alaska and Virgin America serve 80 percent of the top routes that Mileage Plan members have historically flown and earned miles on with American. What this means for you as a Mileage Plan member depends a bit on the location of your hometown airport:

If you’re in other parts of the U.S., you’ll still have lots of eligible American flights with an Alaska “AS” flight number to choose from in and out of Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and Phoenix. As always, you can find eligible flights on alaskaair.com.


OK anyone have a list of flights, I can put cities till the cows come home, but keep getting this:



[MENTION=6040]missydarlin[/MENTION]

This looks like you're searching for flights between cities that aren't served by AS on their own metal. AA-operated, AS-marketed codeshares are only available in conjunction with an AS-operated flight. So those of us who aren't in western North America are out of luck; AS has essentially-explicilty told us to no longer use Mileage Plan. For AS frequent flyers, the AA/AS partnership will only useful to get from AS cities to smaller, eastern markets that AS doesn't serve with its own metal (as well as international trips). That's still a substantial utility, but much, much less useful than the AS is now.

Tons of discussion of this in the relevant thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/alask...ry-2018-a.html.

This is not true

The codeshares may exist, but may not be bookable standalone or outside of select markets.

For example, they codeshare DFW-FLL. But you can't book AS coded DFW-FLL on its own. You can book SEA-AS-DFW-AS*-FLL or SNA-AS*-DFW-AS*-FLL.

* Operated by AA

I've never been able to book them either. There is a daily ORD-JFK flight that I want to book as a codeshare, but It's only purchasable as AA130.

Off the top of my head, there are some codeshares such as LAX-CMH (AA 1735/AS 6537) that are bookable without an AS segment.

Now that I've started down this road, it looks like there are a variety of AA LAX codeshare flights where stand-alone bookings through AS are possible:

ATL, AUS, BDL, CMH, DEN, ELP, IND, KOA, LIH, BNA, MSY, RDU, STL, YYZ, YVR, EUG, XNA, FAT, IAH, MCI, OKC, OMA, SAT, RNO, SMF, SAN, TUS, ASE

I just chose some random days in January 2018 for that pull. Out of LAX, it looks like any destination that AS/VX don't serve themselves with the noticeable absence of pre-merger US hubs is fair game.

LAX seems to be the most open hub to this sort of independent codesharing. I know AA ORD-BWI/DCA codeshares exist, but these look like they must be booked in conjunction with AS segments.

IIRC there are a few local market (standalone) codeshares, but for the most part, they'd have to be booked in conjunction with an Alaska flight.

And no, I don't have a list. I imagine if there is a list, it changes with some frequency

You can book PHX to SAN, SNA, SJC, SMF, GEG, BOI, TUS (selected flights) and some other ones I'm forgetting off the top of my head as standalone codeshares.

The fluffy press release AS put out last month touting how this isn't a big deal for 80% of its flyers seems to indicate you can only get credit for domestic AA flights if they are booked on Alaska stock. Am I interpreting that correctly? Or could I request credit for an AS DFW-FLL codeshare that I book with AA?

Have a pair of JL operated, AA marketed flights SGN-NRT, NRT-LAX. I'm assuming both these flights will credit to AS based on the AA earning chart and not the JL chart correct?

By rule, you get zero.

https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mi...er-overview:AA

https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mi...er-overview:JL

In practice, the rules are honored more in the breach than in the observance when both partners are AS partners (though now that AS is less friendly with AA who knows how they'll handle weird partner codeshare variants of partner ticket/AA metal). Save your paper boarding passes and be prepared to mail them in, and you'll get... something maybe. I would probably not argue whatever it is you get because if they go by the published rules, you should get nothing. Feel free to report back.

I've tried to figure this out, but have given up. I have found some codeshares at obscene prices that only a fool would book. I have taken several United flights already and plan to continue. This has become unworkable.

I did a quick search out of SAN

PHX
DFW
ORD

All were reasonable codeshare prices. Anything connecting like FLL did not work. Only non stops.

Have switched 3 east coast flights to delta this month because of this nonsense. This keeps up, there is no reason to fly AS in 2019.

In addition to what eponymous_coward said, credit for partner operated codeshare is generally based on the operating carrier's chart. Save your boarding passes (I like to snap a picture of them with my phone's camera as soon as I get them from the counter. JAL at LAX handed the entire boarding pass back after scanning but SFO has handed me only the stub end) and be prepared to mail in your ticket receipt as well.

If you are going east from Portland you no longer have a partner. In some instances you can fly thru Seattle, but that's only to the big cities. If you need a Providence or a Cleveland something outside of the big metro areas that Alaska does fly to then you need to look elsewhere. It's just not an option on Alaska, period.

So then I come back to the west coast and I need the Bay Area...who do I choose? Since I have already a bunch of United flights and and looking, I guess, to build United status, I might as well choose United to SFO as well. This is the thinking that starts destroying the Alaska brand. Now, United no longer flies non-stop to LA from Portland, but I wish they did. United also does Denver, which Alaska bailed out of from Portland several years ago.....so this is my dilemma. The Virgin America deal hosed us in Portland big time.

The lack of airlines out there is part of this - Delta, United, American...all three want to go it alone it seems. When we had six or seven major airlines someone wanted our business. Those days are gone....

We really can't partner with United because of the SFO hub thing, Delta already kicked Alaska to the curb, and then the American deal. Not sure what Jet Blue really gets for us.

Bottom line is we are hosed.

A radical thought: fly the best airline for each trip. For PDX-LAX, that's probably AS. For PDX-PWM, that's almost certainly someone else. This is a pretty clear illustration of how anti-competitive frequent flyer programs (especially elite status and credit card-based fee waivers) are.