heymon

I hate to say it but it sounds like the OP is the type of "customer" that Alaska is trying to fend themselves against. What happened to others the past few years is irrelevant now because Alaska is NOW aggressively policing this activity. Buying all kinds of points to use on other airlines but never flying with Alaska to begin with? Ugh.

That said, Alaska should be more upfront about locking accounts if they allow those non-Alaska flyers to buy points. If I was OP, and Alaska won't release those points, it sounds like OP needs to do a chargeback.

Finkface

Other airlines do this as well. There are threads about Air France canceling tickets that were bought purely with transferred-in points when no points had ever been earned from flying AF. I can try to find the thread but there are a few out there on other airline forums with similar tales of tickets bought with purchased/transferred miles being canceled. Not unreasonable, IMO, and I would guess they feel they are on the right side of their T&C, but my point is, this is in no way unique to AS.

Edit: here is one thread.
Flying Blue suddenly cancels entire award ticket after a pax change

And: https://onemileatatime.com/flyingblu...rst-sometimes/

CodyX2

Thanks!

VegasGambler

Selling something and then refusing to honor it is fraud, pure and simple.

The non-criminal way to handle this is to not sell miles to customers who you don't want to sell them to. Selling them with the intention of refusing to honor them precisely meets the definition of fraud.

beachmouse

I'm going to be cranky if this turns out to be something that Alaska starts to enforce aggressively. Alaska is the party that reached out to me and gave me a small but useful number of miles in their program because I used to have a Virgin America account even though I live a couple hundred miles from the nearest place where either airline ever flew. And then I've been throwing a modest 2K miles a month into that account from e-Rewards redemptions because the implication was that I could use them on American. (Don't laugh; American has local flight options) I'm not trying to game my way into overseas premium cabin redemptions; I just like having some modest redemption options across different programs, and I'll be upset if I was wasting my e-Rewards currency because it's unredeemable when I could have been throwing it to another airline instead.

flyingstudent

Availability on JL is available direct on alaskaair.com

No need to call. If you don't see it online, then there's no award availability.

Sometimes newbie thinks they can buy 150k miles and redeem 6x 25k business seats. Airlines hardly release 6 business award seats. You need award availability to book; they are not the same as cash ticket availability.

notquiteaff

WebTraveler

Alaska should just not allow this if they do not intend to honor them, period. It just creates a bunch of badwill. And the original poster should charge back.

That said, I know people who used to never fly Alaska, who lived on the east coast, and who found it a backdoor way to maximize their relationship with Delta, American and some international partners. It was really that simple. He had status with United, and sometimes he had to fly someone else - for whatever reason - and he simply booked those Delta and American flights to Alaska so they were consolidated in one place, and they were somewhat useable. It makes sense.

azepine00

Absolutely. Here in US i would request a refund and if not successful initiate a chargeback on cc or file a claim in SCC.
You can also perhaps contact ombudsman to facilitate...

Nic81

Just an update. If you have purchased miles, your account will be locked so you will have to call to make reservations and they would charge USD15/pax for phone reservations. You have to travel together on the same flights to purchase tickets for your family/ friend. Tickets are limited so it will probably work better if you are alone or 2 pax. There are also restriction on the route so advice is before you purchase the miles, do call and check if you can use them on your preferred route and if there is availability.

xliioper

Nic81

I have this account since Oct 2018. I am not sure what is the issue but it is ok since calling them via skype is free.

minz56

If they want to prevent new members from buying miles they should require an account to have been open for at least month before allowing the purchase of miles (like AA) or disallow the purchase of miles if the balance is zero (like BA).

Mwenenzi

How many flights have you done on AS?
How many AS ff miles in your account from flying (AS & partners?)
AS Status?
Purchased ff miles before? Used for an AS award?

Or are you an AS ff member only because of good value award flights, compared to other ffp's?
Some people forget/ignore the frequent and flyer bit of airline frequent flyer loyalty programs.

tom911

Bloggers do seem to pump the purchase of Alaska miles for those that do not fly them. Here's one from just last month from a very popular blog - not a single word in it about flying the airline. He's not the only blogger posting about the value of buying Alaska miles.
https://thepointsguy.com/news/alaska-buy-miles-promo/

If Alaska is going to place restrictive rules in place about the redemption of those miles, they really need to spell it out on points.com or on the Alaska website.