Unable to book tickets for family using miles
 

I bought miles from points.com and would like to use it in Alaska partner airline but the customer service told me I can only buy the air ticket in my own name. Anyone knows why? I am stuck with lots of miles and transferring cost is quite alot.

I don't think this has anything to do with points.com. My understanding is that the OP bought the points for his own MP account then wanted to redeem for a family member.

This seems to be a further example of AS clamping down on purchasing miles to be used by someone other than the account holder. Check out the thread where a longstanding MP member had a friend's ticket cancelled at the last minute...

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/alas...ble-merge.html

The question is whether AS's T&C's permit or preclude the purchase of a ticket for a friend or family member, particularly when the account holder is not travelling.

I think it is this case. However, I am booking for the whole family (mum, dad, sis and kids and myself)
I have to make an international call and waiting time is long...
I am not sure if I should check with the CC agent again or just purchase miles again individually.
Any idea how many seats are given to Alaska air under JAL flight? I am afraid we cannot fly together now.

what are you trying to redeem? are you elite member? there is a limit of buying 150k miles now.. and you want to book 6+ tickets?

That at least should be easy if you have decent Internet access: calling US 1-800 numbers, including Alaska's number, is free via Skype.

I recall a limitation on new accounts being unable to purchase tickets mostly or entirely using purchased miles, which presumably includes miles transferred in via points.com. I can't find it now; does anyone else recall this? And can anyone find the link and/or FlyerTalk thread?

I have 150k miles and have enough to buy 6 tickets.

I got a JL award ticket last year for 25,000 points using a combination of points transferred from SPG and a small top-up. At that time I had no points from flying on AS or a partner and my account was opened in early 2018. I had no issues. The ticket was only for myself.

That is similar to what I am doing. I bought miles from Points.com and want to redeem it for my travel to Japan. I will try to skype them tonight and see what happens. Thank you for your replies.

You can redeem on alaskaair.com for JAL flights. Will they not let you book online with your points? I use my miles to book for family members regularly online with no issues.

ETA: You mentioned you had 150k which was enough for 6 tickets. This sounds like you are flying inter-Asia, not to or from the US, is that right? I believe there is a restriction on purchasing or changing flights on short notice for flights not to or from the US but you should be able to book flights further out I would think.

I get what Alaska is doing here, but wow, it sells miles, and then has all sorts of issues like this on redeeming them. If this such an issue then Alaska and it's points partners need to make this very clear what is going on and what will be done. It's impossible for someone who does not follow this stuff regularly to understand comprehend this. And he's right, he purchased the miles in good faith (probably from a link on the Alaska website) and under the theory he can use them - and now he finds he can't. He's out the cost of the miles and he's stuck.

The thing is there is nothing written about such restrictions. Reservations says no issue but my plan is locked so I need to call customer care when it opens.

This sounds like a bit of miscommunication. If AS has locked OP's account, there will be a reason for that and that reason is what OP needs to communicate here.

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.

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.
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/air-...ax-change.html

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

Thanks!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

There is a thread dating to 2015 with quite similar experiences. The general theme is people acquiring large pots of AS miles without any earning from flying (AS or even its partners) and then using the miles to purchase long haul, generally but not always premium cabin, tickets for others. The terms and conditions do not say that this type of activity is frowned upon (:td:), but I understand where AS is coming from.

The post at the beginning of that thread is particularly illustrative. Alaska doesn't claim to have a general rule prohibiting redemption of miles for other people, but they have imposed that rule on specific accounts as part of a fraud/abuse investigation, even when there wasn't any activity that they could prove violated specific terms, relying instead on the general "we can do whatever we want" provision in the terms & conditions.

I think that this FlyerTalk column sheds good light on where AS is coming from. AS on average makes money selling miles, but they almost certainly don't make money on customers who buy large numbers of miles and redeem them for expensive tickets without flying AS.

Most (all?) frequent flyer programs morphing into frequent spender programs :td:
Are a good profit center for airlines

Thanks

They get a commission for pumping points.com. If you use Topcashback, you get 2% back on purchases. You can imagine how much they get in commissions for pumping points.

Given the number of marketing emails I get every week from various airlines and hotels, encouraging me to BUY points and miles, they, too, seem to consider their programs something more than a frequent flyer program.

I was typing in my four-year-old's sarcastic voice, calling you silly. ;) The humor may have failed to translate to text, or not been there in the first place.