eponymous_coward

Said someone didn't notice the posts saying AA and AS are having the exact same "IT issue".

(Can confirm, BA shows 1J on 2/12 for BA 174 JFK-LHR, AS and AA do not show 1J).

Either it's an amazing coincidence that two different companies with two different award booking engines are having the exact same IT issue or it's something like BA is now not providing the same award availability to partners that they do to their own elites (something CX is doing these days as well). Or maybe BA is broken for talking to SABRE (which AA and AS do use, BA uses Amadeus... except that AA/AS show Y just fine, as well as BA J/F out of BOS or ex-LHR to NON-USA destinations, it would be pretty weird to have SABRE broken for J/F/Y+ but not Y and ONLY in one geographic location).

So if it's BA telling USA-based partners "shove off, those J/F seats are for OUR program, not YOURS", and it even includes AA (a WAY more important partner for BA than AS)...I suspect not a lot AS can do here.

Sea2Lhr

I sent an email to the Alaska Air Mileage Plan department. We'll see what they say (if anything).

Over the past few weeks I have done some searches on BA.com for paid Club World tickets to London and noticed the prices are in the $3,500 range. In the past, these tickets were in the $5,000 range. I wonder if BA has made the strategic decision to sell more tickets directly at a reduced price rather than offer them to Alaska and American as award tickets. The compensation paid by Alaska and American to BA for award tickets is certainly less than the former list price of Club World and First tickets.

rosenkavalier

thanks for emailing AS, do update us on how they respond to your question...

aCavalierInCoach

AA may be a more important to BA than AS is to BA but BA is a more important partner for AS mileage redeemers than is BA to AA; AS needs to address this. While UA MP has huge issues with dynamic pricing, reality is I found no premium cabin availability on a simple SFO-LHR trip for December, while I was able to book economy tickets at 15k each and upgrade with plus points to polaris at booking over at United. While I don't love the new system, at least I can get what I'm looking for at a great value... some of the time. With AS, it looks like I've got bupkis.

Bretmd

There’s not much for AS to do if a partner restricts award availability. AS can’t force BA or any other airline to open up award availability.

I get the impression that AS has been trying to add European partners (Aer Lingus, Finnair) but ultimately it looks like the future for AS just isn’t looking good for Europe Awards in J.

Hopefully, this is just an IT issue for BA. Wouldn’t be the first time an IT issue restricted award availability.

eddiehuang97

Not sure why would BA restricts availability to AS and AA, while these seats are wide open to other partners.

VegasGambler

BA basically gets paid twice for their award seats (you pay the ridiculous fees and AS pays them after deducting your miles). Why would they want to give that up?

With the fees + the mileage; it's usually much (much, much) cheaper to buy the tickets and earn miles. Last year I bought a F round trip to India (4 long hauls) for $4500 and earned 105k AS miles. I can't imagine paying $2000, plus 160k miles, and giving up those 105k AS miles (not to mention eqm) instead. That's giving up 265k miles to save $2500. That's worse than a penny per mile.

eponymous_coward

If you wanted to restrict partner demand for USA BA premium seats and help your own program, restricting AsiaMiles (CX) as opposed to AAdvantage and Mileage Plan isn’t going to help much. Most USA-based partner demand is in Y (which is still available) and how many people live in the USA and use a non-USA based OW program that isn’t BA? It’s probably a rounding error.

aCavalierInCoach

I agree that AS can't force BA to open up any specific availability, but there is a substance to the business relationship between the two airlines and the idea that they have no influence/levers here (including $) is absurd.

eponymous_coward

The AS-BA business relationship is mostly not based around a comparatively small bunch of FTers who redeem AS miles in F/J. It’s mostly based around putting feed in each other’s planes. Sure, complain all you want, but if BA wants to take care of their own loyalty program members over AS members by excluding some premium inventory, why wouldn’t they? CX is doing it now. What’s AS going to threaten BA with? Dumping BA and trying to join SkyTeam or Star Alliance to get European partners that aren’t LCCs?

Bretmd

I sincerely hope this issue is fixed. Perhaps it’s an IT issue - this seems likely. Perhaps, as you say, the business relationship will bring back these awards, assuming BA intentionally did this. Given the track record of partner awards in frequent flier programs, however, the latter seems unlikely.

aCavalierInCoach

Who said anything about threaten? I don't really care what it is AS decides to do, carrot or stick, to try to right the situation -- bottom line is they are going to lose high margin business if they don't, and likewise I'll stop booking premium cabin fares on BA and crediting it to Alaska. The mix of traveler profiles in the relationship today - and the relevant economics thereof - is not one I think you have any firsthand insight into, but welcome you to prove me wrong..

Bretmd

This is a wise move if you are planning on using AS miles for premium travel to/from Europe. Whether or not the BA rewards are reinstated.

Dieuwer

I am in a similar situation.
I like using award miles to fly to Europe in J, but ever since the departure of AF/DL/KL and the impending departure of AA, my feeling is that Mileage Plan miles have become almost impossible to use and close to being worthless to me. The only carriers I see offered from BOS are either BA or EI: BA has ridiculously high fuel surcharges while EI requires an outrageously high number of miles.
Sorry, but I won't be booking BA either and crediting them to AS.

aCavalierInCoach

The fuel surcharges have always been part of the deal - I don't love them but it's just part of the mileage math. I'm okay with the deal when awards are plentiful - that is simply no longer the case.