mattchench

Hi, I am trying to figure out the stopover rule for one-way award travel. In this case, I am talking about all Alaska Airlines operated.

I will take one-way from Barrow (BRW) to Los Angeles (LAX). This is the confirmed travel. But thinking to take advantage of Alaska one-way stopover, so randomly add some additional routes after BRW-LAX without using addition miles (I live in Los Angeles area, to be exact, Orange County. SNA is actually closer and more ideal). Here are my questions.

1) I searched BRW-LAX-PDX and got the error message (Error Code-1580). However, If I searched BRW-LAX-HNL or BRW-LAX-JFK, it does provide some flights to select. So what is the logic behind?

2) If my stopover is SNA instead of LAX, it turns no results at all, even BRW-SNA-HNL. Does it mean the stopover has to be like the Alaska hub or any other reason?

3) If I have BRW-LAX-HNL and already take BRW-LAX, do I still get the chance to change LAX-HNL flight afterward? Like change different date or even change the destination city?

Thanks in advance for answering my questions

pbd456

i believe the official rule is no change allow after award travel has started, but it depends. if you have elite status, it may be easier to make date change.

sudobuntu

1)
BRW-LAX is southbound.
LAX-PDX is northbound.
You're backtracking, and you can't do that. That's an open-jaw roundtrip. HNL and JFK work because they're east/west and LAX is a logical stopover point for those routes.

2) BRW-SNA-HNL doesn't work because there is no direct SNA-HNL flight. They all go through SFO/SJC/SEA which is... backtracking.

3) You can certainly SDC after award travel has started, and I believe you can even fully change the remainder of the ticket, subject of course to the $125 change fee. I'm unclear on if elite benefits will help here, outside of SDC.

nomiiiii

Flying for Fun

It isn't a matter of East/West, North/South, it is a matter of what AS allows as a valid routing between point A and point B.

You can most certainly can fly SFO-SEA and have a stopover in SEA (1 day, 2 days, 1 month, 6 months) before flying SEA-LAX for a grand total of 5K points. Ultimately, you are flying North to go South but this is a valid routing on AS for SFO-LAX. It can be purchased as revenue or on an award. Notice the 5K? You are paying for a hop award from SFO-LAX.

Use the regular one-way search between A and B to see how AS will route it. Check weekdays and weekends because every route may not be available everyday. You should be able to do a stopover at anyone of the connection cities along the route using the multi-city search.

James

VegasGambler

So, is the rule that if there is a revenue fare which has it as a valid routing, then that routing can be booked as an award?

I'm shocked that SFO-SEA-LAX is bookable as a valid routing for SFO-LAX. That seems abusable even as a revenue ticket (unless all fares that allow it are expensive)

CDKing

Just because the AS site allows something to be booked online does not make it a legal routing nor is the price at the correct amount. I think there is some phrase about gift horses? Just be happy when what you can get.

sudobuntu

Wow, color me intrigued. That's totally bookable.

It's weird, too, because the flights in cash are showing additive pricing of the two segments. It's certainly amusing to choose the 5k miles and get this alert in the cart:
Choices, choices....

Now I'm just disappointed that LAX-SEA(stop)-SAN is pricing at 12.5k, since that would have been an amazing opportunity at "Hop" pricing. Oh well.

Yllanes

Thank you for this post! I have just that itinerary coming up (OAK-SEA on Saturday, SEA-LAX on Sunday). It would never have occured to me that I could book it for 5k miles, but I have just done it. It's crazy, even without the status bonus miles, my SFO-PHL economy flight this weekend has given me enough miles for this itinerary (thanks to the current promotion for double miles in transcons).