gdam22

Thinking of cancelling my Alaska card as they just aren't offering enough international award space the last couple of years for me. We've seen it in the Cathay thread and it's just sort of the most recent casualty. I get being flexible, but it's months on end without any F/J availability on most routes to Europe and Asia. In addition they've lagged for months on Singapore and now Aer Lingus awards. They've lost Delta/Air France/KLM and haven't replaced them. If they are advertising it on their site that you can redeem for miles, but it's never available, it's just misleading. Anyhow, mini rant aside, I get it, it's just reality.

So question is: do other airlines alliances(Delta or United for example) have more international award space available? Or is this something that's sort of an industry wide thing.

Thanks!

RAD_PDX

When/where are you looking specifically? I just checked out of curiosity and could find trips from PDX/SEA - NRT, PEK, CDG, LHR in J for 50-60K miles.

That being said, award space is far from plentiful and as you eluded to, requires some flexibility. I think the main handicap in international award travel are the European partners (Iceland air has limited options, and BA has absurd taxes&fees)

eponymous_coward

I have regularly redeemed for AS partner premium class cabins over the last few years, with exactly zero of them being DL/KL/AF flights.

Since they're never available, I must be hallucinating my AA/JL/AY/BA premium class redemptions made in the past 6 months I guess.

This could be a problem when I show up at the airport for the flights.¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Probably a question best addressed in other forums where expert advice lies. I've never felt that putting all of your eggs in one frequent flier mileage basket is a wise idea, myself, and I regularly redeem outside of AS MP as well (my next summer vacation trip contains plenty of *A redemptions using airlines AS has no relationship with- I essentially use cash to buy miles on the cheap when various schemes show that it makes sense).

Airlines are more aggressive adjusting the number of premium cabin longhaul seats to match the market, to be true, and have inflated mileage, had no/short-notice devaluations.

In the end if your experience of AS MP isn't what you need, you're probably better served either using a paid award booking service or leaving the program in search of greener grass (but sometimes it isn't). One note is AS MP doesn't really have transfer partners. *A/OW/ST programs do, like AV, DL, AA, BA, SQ or UA (and SQ Krisflyer is probably the only way you will get an award redemption on SQ longhaul from the USA, save for occasional flukes).

So you might be well served looking for another program if all AS is is a piggy bank for premium class redemptions, as opposed to an airline serving routes you fly regularly.

VegasGambler

Most space that is available to one partner is available to all partners.

Some airlines will make space available only in their own programs and not to partners.

Finding premium cabin space to Asia is not that hard. I made a trip this past May, and have another scheduled for March. Both trips F on transpacific routes and J on intra-Asia. JL has TONS of premium space. CX is tighter but is really not that bad.

Europe is kind of a different story. I agree that the redemption options there are not good.

The real difference here is that you can get a F ticket to Asia, WITH a stopover, for 70k miles. With other US-based airlines you are looking at many more miles and no stopover. If you are looking for premium cabin redemptions to Asia, an AS mile is worth 1.5 to 2x a UA or AA mile (I don't know as much about DL because I'm not a member, but I do have a decent stash of UA and AA miles).

Honestly a better option is to get a card that collects pts with transfer options, and transfer directly to the carrier you want, rather than using a US-based partner (other than AS).

110k UR pts can be transferred to VS and redeemed for a round-trip F trip to Japan on JAL ANA. This is seemingly better than the 140k AS miles it would cost you... and, in fact, if you want a trip where you visit Japan, and nowhere else, it's a good use of UR pts (I'll probably do this eventually) but the generous stopover rules make the AS miles more valuable IMO (at this point, I would not use AS miles for a trip if I didn't want a stopover -- I'd use something else). Availability will be no better than what you find on AS (in fact, I'd suggest searching for the space on the AS website, since it's one of the best partner award search sites out there) (Edited to reflect the fact that VS is actually partners with ANA and not JAL -- thanks @DrAlex!)

ANA is another great option. You can transfer MR or Starwood/Marriott pts there.

A variable amount of ANA miles (depending on season, 70k-90k) can be redeemed for a round trip business class ticket to Japan. IMO, this is an EXTREMELY good deal, and I'd recommend doing this if you have pts that transfer to ANA and want to do a Japan-only trip. Also, if you have any interest in a RTW trip, ANA has a ridiculously good award chart for that.

Starwood/Marriott points are also great for transfer (including to AS!) Other good options include transferring to ANA or Asiana for some cheap awards.

Bottom Line: AS gives you the best value per-mile out of all the US-based carriers. The network is limited, but you are probably better off dealing with that by collecting points that have good transfer options than by sinking everything into one program where the miles have very low value. Also, there's nothing that says that you can only collect miles in a single program Use AS where it has good value, and use other programs to supplement it where the offerings are not good.

DrAlex

All great points. Just one little correction: 110K VS miles will get you an ANA r/t to Japan in F. Perhaps the best redemption of point/miles available. That of course means it's probably going up soon...

VegasGambler

Whoops, wrong alliance.

Scratch the recommendation to search for the space on the AS website then

radtechtraveler

I've been casually looking for Europe Dates throughout the year on AS UA and DL. Compared to the last few years premium cabin redemption to Europe is pretty sparse this year, besides BA and the $1000 in taxes. The 330 day cut off is always the best option. UA seems to have the best availability to Europe. I seem to always find at least 1 day a week i can grab 2 J seats from SFO; finding domestic connections is near impossible. DL is plentiful with seats but the prices are laughable

radtechtraveler

Additionally when they added Condor and Iceland air with their recliner style J seats, it makes weeding out the subpar J class from the good stuff

notquiteaff

3Cforme

The (a?) problem with AS redemptions is 100% reliance on partners for intercon awards. If you're willing to blow enough miles for standard/non-saver awards on AA/DL/UA you can go anywhere they fly. It can be a LOT of Delta miles for a Delta One seat USA-Sydney. If you're the type that just can't imagine spending big miles or flying in coach, then, yeh, intercon redemptions across AS/DL/AA/UA are a lot tougher than they were 5-10 years ago.

TEDisgone

I certainly can understand the frustration but I have been startled enough times by finding the "unicorns" of seats that I still consider Alaska to be one of the best programs.

A few months before AF/KL left the program, I found space on both - I actually have a flight next week on KL! I'm not excited that Icelandair and Condor seem to come up as options more often for TATL but as long as I plan far in advance and use Expert Flyer to track the AA flights that I want, I have not been disappointed (so far). And I guess I have incredible luck finding space on JL and KE, both in advance and at near last minute. And Qantas in F? Yup.

But yeah, if you're not using the Alaska card for the benefits (only!) then you should close your account.

gdam22

Appreciate all the feedback, thanks. Vegas in particular, you had a lot of good insight.

You all must be better at finding award space than I am for Asia. I can find a little bit for this upcoming February/March, but it's very sparse and only J, no F. (I'll take J, don't get me wrong!). Cathay has zero availability during these 2 months(via a Qantas and BA search). JAL/Hainan have a little bit. I'm also confused as to why Alaska doesn't seem to have premium economy awards anymore. Europe awards are really rough.

On the positive side: I did use expert flyer to see that Hainan is going to have their new layout for J on it's west coast flights very soon with some award space already showing, which looks pretty sweet. Unfortunately, they do have the fuel surcharge, but it's not as bad as BA. The one sweet award I did find the last couple years was a one way AFrance business for 2 people from PPT/LAX/SEA. I do use the companion fare every year, and it usually saves me at least 150$.(which is not bad, even if I don't use the card).

Most likely what I will do based on this feedback is use Chase Sapphire as my main miles card and just keep Alaska for the companion fare and free bags.

KnownasEric

Back when I was on AA, I made two one-way redemptions (2 people) to Europe with some saver space, some partner. They might advertise better availability, but the routing is awful:

SEA-> PHL -> MUC (not saver)
OTP -> LHR -> MIA -> SEA (saver). They didn't have saver F space on the MIA -> SEA trip and charged me 90,000 miles to upgrade. Not only that, but it cost me $700 dollars because I was flying on everyone's favorite redemption, BA.

Overall in international J / domestic F it cost me about 430,000 miles. I'd say AS is harder to redeem international trips, because there isn't much directly they can do about partners opening space, but they're redemption rates are VASTLY better, even if the product is inferior (Condor, Icelandair)