gdam22

Mileage availability keeps getting worse and it's very frustrating. Airlines preferring to travel with half empty premium cabins doesn't seem like good business, but what do I know? I've never gone bankrupt like most major airlines.

eponymous_coward

... but the one under discussion (Alaska Airlines) never has gone bankrupt. I also don't see them flying with empty cabins. They seem to be more willing to let someone upgrade into F from Y on an award as an elite than give out F awards in the first place... but unless Alaska Lounge access is the ne plus ultra, that doesn't seem terrible to me.

I dunno about " horrible international options with AS". I have upcoming flights in CX F, JL F, KE J for trips I have planned out in the last few weeks. But sure, I could see people thinking things are garbage- it took some major maneuvering to get an F seat on AS SEA-SFO on one of those awards, at a bad time that forces an 8 hour stopover in SFO. I'm basically going to wait for the inevitable schedule change and try and force my way into a better flight timing now that's it's a confirmed F seat. And Europe's not so hot these days...

RetiredSFOATC

I would agree that the award selections to the Far East are in general better than going across the Atlantic (or for that matter, transcon US). But that's not how Alaska markets its FF program redemptions. It says "Use miles for award travel to over 900 worldwide destinations with our global airline partners." It also doesn't say "as long you fly coach" or "book 11 months in advance", or "don't book on FI", or any other qualifiers (I could go on, but...). I think AS needs to do better on this one. I'm not expecting availability whenever I want to fly, and I am willing to work hard to find the seats, but it is pretty futile most of the time. After weeks of looking daily for TATL award travel earlier this year, I gave up and a) bought Premium seats on DY (fingers crossed) for the flight over, and, b) used UA miles to book the return in J (saver) - which was no problem, BTW. Anecdotal, but certainly an easier experience.

Bretmd

RetiredSFOATC

I would *mostly* agree. But there are a couple of glaring problems here: first is the ongoing inability (for months now) of not being able to book (award travel) on FI. How difficult of a fix can that really be? And if it is that difficult, why don't we come up with a workaround until we can fix it? If TATL award travel were more plentiful with other AS partners, it wouldn't be as glaring, but with the other issues mixed in there, I'm not convinced that AS considers TATL that important for its members. And I don't think the EI availability at 260K per J seat is anything to celebrate. It seems there are other non-Skyteam/SA/OW carriers out there who might be good partner candidates, but I don't know anything about the backroom stuff it would take to make that happen. I'm not a frequent complainer, but this one has me a little wrapped around the axle. Yes, I could move to a different program/airline, but I would SO prefer to stay with AS, for a lot of reasons, if they could just fix this (or for that matter, even suggest that they do see a problem).

MeanwhileBackAtFAI

I am in a similar situation this year. In previous years I was able to get to 75K with ease, qualifying as early as half way into the year. Now I relocated and the only AS origin for me is BNA with non-stop to SFO. A lot of the other travel I have to do is up and down the East Coast which is on American (most convenient for CHA-NYC and CHA-CHS non-stop) and to other locations from either BNA or ATL. Followed by Delta out of BNA/ATL.

I had a lot of AS miles banked and decided that I won't be able to effectively use them unless I burn a large amount quickly to hedge against any devaluing (which has to be coming at some point, pure speculation on my part). So I spend 360k on EK F DFW-DXB-HKG RT. This essentially ends my business relationship with AS. I still have about a 100k miles left but feel comfortable holding on to those for now.

The majority of my AS miles was earned on TATL on BA in J which 125% elite bonus, 50% booking class bonus, and 100% promo bonus and I have no opportunity to frequently fly BA anymore.

Earlier this year I considered whether it makes sense to just spend up to get to 75K again and decided that it doesn't make sense. As part of the same consideration I looked at all my options originating from BNA/CHA/ATL to where I normally need to go and decided that I will no longer be loyal to any one airline. I will just book the cheapest fare and be done with it.

I have become disillusioned with the perks loyalty programs provide, or the lack thereof. Upgrades have been rare for me so much so that I just started paying for domestic F and international W outright. Miles aren't that useful to me because I don't want to redeem them for Y seats, and redemption for J or F has been challenging (though I will say that AS web site is probably one the best one out there to find partner awards). I am still sitting on 165k LH miles and no good way to spend them. Attempting to book international J or F seats on United has been incredibly frustrating and left me jaded.

So my suggestion is to get a credit card that rewards you more broadly, like the Chase Sapphire Reserve, and get the perks via the CC and buying the least expensive and shortest duration flight regardless of airline.

Of course there will be some posters who will say "wait a minute! you would have had to spent $120,000 on your Chase card to get the same 360k miles you burned on EK", actually that's not apples to apples. If I still had the opportunity to fly TATL on BA once a month I would stay with AS, but since I don't have that dropping all loyalty to airlines and consolidating all purchases onto Chase Sapphire Reserve is the best option for me at this time.

PotomacApproach

I'm a former MVPG, and will be coming back next year, though only due to a Qantas and a BA R/T in J and F that will get me about 46k EQMs combined. AS has nearly as good an int'l network as a lot of carriers who fly on their own metal, and those BA bonus EQMs are an incredible deal.

That said, I only default into status these days through trips like the above or by putting my son's private school tuition on my DL Amex card. Years ago, I would have ended up paying $400 extra or connecting just to earn AS EQMs for a trip like SFO-BNA. But I'm not paying extra or arriving four hours later anymore, regardless of which airline I have status with. So I booked UA for the best price in F on a direct flight. Done this a few times now with mid cons and an EWR R/T in J, and I might actually default into UA Silver. I promise you will not be making any attempt to keep that UA status if I get it. Free agency is incredibly liberating.

chipmaster

This year sampled AS, BR, UA, AA, DL, and AC mostly in Y, I'd say AS service comes in tops with BR/AC a close second and the big three can never figure out why they can't improve their culture and get their FA to improve, chalk it up to mergers and unions.

Calling home where AS serves make every effort to chose AS first, if I was someplace where AS required a connect wouldn't do it. The hard product is getting so similar that the things that matter like priority boarding / upgrades and some few extra free flights beats the smile/attitude. Though I have to admit that going 14 hours with some people who view service as an afterthought versus who really want to service you is refreshing.

gdam22

I'm curious as to why it's easier to get Asian carriers to partner than European ones. So Delta forced out KLM/AF, but what about, Lufthansa, Iberia, Norwegian, Virgin Atlantic, Swiss( I could go on)?

I suppose part of it is that Asian airlines value the connections Alaska provides on the West Coast more, but that can't be the whole story.

In the end, outside of the first class bumpings and the decline in customer service, I don't have an issue with flying Alaska, it just means I'm going to fly whatever is cheapest domestically. I'm curious to see the new terminal at SeaTac though.

eponymous_coward

Lufthansa and Swiss are *A and in a joint TATL revenue sharing partnership with UA that is immunized against antitrust. UA has hubs in SFO, LAX and DEN and thus very good coverage of the West Coast USA. So they don't exactly need to come crawling to AS. The lesser LH group airlines are a little more likely, like LO/SN, but they also don't have much in the way of West Coast connectivity that AS can offer that UA can't.

Norwegian is directly competitive with BA out of LON. Not bloody likely unless AS is interested in angering BA- trading BA for Norwegian would be a disaster for premium class redemptions, and would leave AS with a bunch of second tier LCCs covering Europe like DE, FI (and DE might not last if it gets reabsorbed into LH as EW).

Same deal with Virgin Atlantic, except DL has an ownership stake AND a similar TATL JV with Delta on top, and "hey, Delta, could you do us a favor and let VS be a partner?" doesn't seem too likely to me.

The only one of your list that's feasible is IB; given that AS has partnerships with BA, AY, EI in the IAG airlines, IB doesn't seem too much of a stretch. Maybe a random *A airline that isn't closely buddied up like TP or TK... but the backtracking's pretty ferocious for a lot of Western Europe from IST.