Inbound/outbound different airline?
 

This has probably been answered before but I couldn't find it, plus I'm new here. On Alaska's system, can I book a round-trip international ticket using miles with a different airline going out and coming back? A rep on the phone said I couldn't but someone else said it wasn't an issue. Anyone have any experience with this?

Yes, you can. I’ve flown LATAM and Aeroméxico on a single award reservation (and AM+AA, BA+DL, DL+FI, etc).

99% of Alaska fares (revenue or award) are one-way fares, so if you can’t get it to work, you would always split it into two reservations. The only r/t fare I can think of are KE awards, but you can still mix them with other airlines.

Yes, you can use different airlines for each direction--you're essentially booking two one-way tickets so the outbound doesn't really have any effect on the inbound and vice versa.

I guess I should clarify; round trip on ONE ticket, not simply booking each leg individually. Yeah as mentioned above Korean air charges round-trip price for a one-way ticket. I could book them on my outbound leg, but there's no availability with them coming back. There IS availability on JAL for the the return leg, but according to the Alaska rep I spoke to I can't book both of them on one RT ticket. Buying the JAL ticket one-way is fine (no price difference), but yeah to book with Korean one-way is just ridiculous to pay RT fare.

AS only allows one partner on an award ticket, so when booking RT you're hosed if the partner only has availability in one direction

You can in fact put two partners on a r/t reservation (see below). I only suggested two one-ways if you were facing difficulties with an agent.

This is false. Alaska allows one partner PER DIRECTION. See screenshot below. It even halved the amount for the Korean Air flight as it should.https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...4e04091133.png

okay, I stand humbled and corrected ...

No worries! Just realized that my last message came across as a bit rude. Apologies.

Another example, showing clearly that AS is charging 35k each way for a KE US-Asia trip as part of a round trip even though the other direction doesn't involve KE.https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...466bcdac7e.png

Just be cautious, once a Korean Air leg is flown, the reservation becomes stuck as round trip and the return can no loner be refunded. If KE is on the return then if you need to cancel the return you get the return half credited back to the MP account.

This is true. I have a half-used DL/FI J award that I had to cancel the return (FI) and agents can't figure out how to rebook.