Discussion: The merits of people moving miles to Alaska from SPG to book awards
 

So is it just me? I guess I get tired of reading all these people on here who have no connection to AS at all who simply dump a bunch of miles from some other source and then book international premium travel. Yes, I know it's all legal blah, blah, blah. I guess I feel like this kind of use of the program makes thing harder for those of us who actually fly AS (sometimes a lot) to get awards and could lead to tightening up the program in the future.

While I understand your sentiment, most of us go "shopping" when we can't find an award in our home programs. I just redeemed a couple intra-Africa awards on KQ through Flying Blue by quickly transferring Chase UR.

This is why partnerships exist. Someone who flies with one of the partners could say the same thing... why are people who fly AS using up the award availability on JAL and EK and CX rather than the frequent fliers of those airlines? I don't see why you think that, as an AS flier, you have any more claim to a first class JAL seat than sometime who stays at SPG a lot.

I don't believe I have more claim to anything. What I don't want is for the AS Mileage Plan to become a worldwide bank of miles/points because of its generous rules. It would just be a matter of time until those generous rules disappear.

That's not clear. I assume that AS makes money on this transaction.

If you wish for that, then you are also wishing that you won't have any partners willing to give AS any money which will in turn make it all the more difficult for AS to continue to have a FF program at all. Mileage Plan makes money from the partner payments. What you are hoping for would be the end of Mileage Plan as a viable program.

It's mostly just you (though I've heard this before). I have a tidy pile of AV miles. Some UA miles from a good promo. Got DL miles from 12Status and promos. I've picked up AA and BA over the years (I like using Avios for certain things, have NEVER flown BA, not even on an AS award). Used to have US miles. I credit rental cars to WN and get 600-2400 WN points a crack.

I think it's kind of dangerous to put all your faith in one airline loyalty program myself. AS has burned their customers with no-notice rule changes on multiple occasions. I'll probably walk to a combination of WN/whatever I am willing to pay for if they water down MP with a Basic Economy clone of UA/AA's punitive products. In the end excessive "loyalty" or emotional evaluation of airline programs is likely to lead to being a chump. The airline is being run like a business and is looking out for shareholders; I am the only one I can trust to look out for me.

I think that, what it comes down to is, these partnerships exist for a reason (and that reason is almost certainly that they are good for the companies who form the partnerships).

I have no idea how much SPG pays AS for the miles, or how much AS pays the partners for the award tickets, but if it was a bad deal for AS I'm sure that they wouldn't do it.

SPG as such will cease to exist in about a year or so. It's not clear at all whether the transfer possibilities in the merged Marriott/Ritz/Starwood program will be any better than in the current Marriott program, which nobody raves about the way people rave about SPG->airlines.

In fact, there may be a rash of "dumping in" to various airline programs from SPG this year, simply because it may the last year anyone can do that. Anyone who was collecting SPG for airilne miles, rather than hotel points, will probably want to "dump" rather than wait for them to turn into Marriott points.

it's just you.

It’s just you.

And news flash: AS is ripe for a devaluation. It has been for at least a couple of years now. Don’t save up too many miles, AS will disappoint you sooner than later.

Yep. I'd thought about saving some for future redemptions, but I've wound up spending most of my AS miles for trips this year. My AA trips were booked before the relevant charts got devalued (though some did actually improve this year), and those CX charts can't last for long.

I pretty much agree on the devaluation prediction. Burned 250k miles already this year; 190k to go.

I fly Alaska regularly (MVP) and frequently dump SPG points into my account to top off miles for an award. The SPG transfers make accruing Alaska miles through any means (including flying) more valuable.