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.

No, you can transfer from a variety of hotel programs. (Marriott was just mentioned upthread, for example.) It's just that many FTers concentrate more on SPG than other hotel programs for transfer to airlines, because of the value. (But SPG will all go away in about a year.)

Also, those who got a Diners Club USA card while it was available and kept it, they can also transfer Club Rewards points to Alaska Airlines.

I am just completing an 8-week around the world vacation that started January 1st. Will be home March 1st. Booked EK, QF and CX 2 pax F & J. I used SPG transfer to SQ for 2 pax J SIN-DXB and AA for AUH-SYD EY F Apartments 2 pax. Have QF F DFW-SYD booked for August. Between my Partner and I we have burned 462.5K and have 400K to go.
220K with AA and 390K with Marriott.

AS miles are easy to accumulate. If you have a lot of SPG consider transferring to JL for very favorable distance based EK F redemptions.

James

Amen brother. Staying diversified and not hoarding any one currency is really the only way to protect yourself from an unannounced devaluation.

I guess it depends in part on how you define "attractive". It would depend on how many points you have with hotel, how you value the hotel's points, vs how you value the Alaska miles given whatever the conversion ratio is. Since those things might vary from one person to the next, the "attractiveness" of using a hotel program (that you stay at) for Alaska miles would vary from one person to the next.

Obviously, no other hotel program has had the 1:1:1 ratio of credit card:hotel points:airline miles of SPG, so for someone earning hotel points solely through credit cards, obviously nothing will ever replace SPG once it goes away.

As someone who pretty much never needs even 5 or 6, let alone 7 nights in a row in the same hotel, I beg to question: Is Marriott itself even that attractive a transfer ratio if you can't use vacation packages? :confused:

If you factor out vacation packages, is Marriott that much more attractive than any other hotel program that transfers to Alaska:

https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mi...hotel-partners

? :confused:

(Of course, the list at the link above is rather subject to change, due to all the fluidity in the hotel program space. Fairmont is joining Accor, so will that stay? La Quinta is joining WyndhamRewards, so will that stay?)

1:1:1.25, actually (20k -> 20k -> 25k)

It's just you.

I don't see it as any different than transferring Amex MR or Chase UR to one of their partners to book an award, aside from the fact that SPG will transfer bonus miles if you do the transfer in multiples of 20,000 points.

This is a very valid point. AS used to have the best award space on EK until so many people were using it that either AS or EK devalued the program. I got caught on that mid-bookings.

Being Canadian we have very little options to accumulate AS points other than by flying or direct purchase so we are at a distinct disadvantage. I see imminent devaluations especially for CX (which I am trying to fly in March 2019) so wish that some other programs would become competitive to reduce the demand.

Unfortunately AS reduced their daily flights from 3 per day to 1 per day for next December (into YLW). Now impossible to get award space linking onward from SEA. The end is nigh.

Initially that seemed really really amazing, but then I noticed you mentioned SPG points and I was thinking Marriott points. Was about to transfer 90k from my Chase UR to Marriott and hunt for Biz class round trip to Japan (~50k to ~60k miles each way) and a cat 5 hotel :P

I assume that needs more like 270,000 Marriott points for an award like that, right? (Based off 1:3 transfer from SPG to Marriott)

AS is a good program if you fly their partner airlines and do not care about status imo. I credit all the OW partner, KE and EK flight to AS. Pool them all together makes it easier to burn in a single account later.