burningflames

It's definitely refundable if you push. But only for the timeline the waiver is covering (up to May 31st for now).

tom911

Called and cancelled my Australia flights for May on Qantas which are no longer operating from/to SFO. Although Qantas made the announcement two weeks ago, the Alaska website just updated in the last day or two. Did ask about the $12.50 partner fee being that I'm not the one cancelling and the agent said they'd refund without any issue. Received this e-mail for the SFO departure right after I hung up:

wkc

I got refunded the partner award fee as well, but the CS initially refused to budge until I mentioned the data points I saw here and had to be very forceful with her.

This is the email I got afterwards:

https://imgur.com/zdZdibj

emma69

Colour me impressed - a short hold time (couple of minutes), a polite employee who must be under a lot of stress, and a quick resolution to my award ticket refund. Well done Alaska, I will definitely recommend and use again!

A1pax

Not sure if I should start a new thread for this question? Or, I can ask it in this thread?
About 2 months ago my AS miles were about to expire. Therefore I made a booking (using about half of my AS miles) for an award redemption for niece in Australia to visit her father in the US in July during the school holidays in Australia - flying QF. The redemption extended my remaining AS miles for 2 years.
This is my current dilemma. The Australian government has said that the lock down may last until the end of this year, and people are not likely to be allowed to travel overseas. Should I cancel niece's trip now? Or, wait until closer to dates to see if QF would cancel the flights in July?
If I cancel now, will AS refund (automatically) my miles and taxes paid? Or, do I have to ask / pay a fee for the cancellation (like I had to do with AA some years ago)? I had to pay a booking fee of $15 for partner booking via telephone. I suspect I will have to phone AS to cancel the booking and pay another fee of $15?
If AS miles are returned to my account, will they have the extended expiry date? Or ?
Thank you for any comment / suggestion / help - which will be much appreciated.

Flying for Fun

A cancellation fee should be covered under the current COVID-19 fee waiver. AS will redeposit your miles (you will see the redposit right away) and refund your taxes & fees. However, the phone booking fee of $15 and the partner booking fee of $12.50 ($25 return) are non-refundable. You could ask AS for those to be waived but I wouldn't expect them to be.

I think I would wait until closer to the travel travel date to see if travel is still possible. Even if it isn't or you do want to cancel, a redeposit in July should be activity in your account to extend your MP miles expiry date to July 2022.

James

A1pax

Many thanks, James, for your quick reply. Your explanation on cancellation fee and redeposit of miles and suggestion to wait until closer to travel date to decide, make perfect sense. I will wait and see how this pandemic and lock down situation will develop. I really want niece to make the trip to visit her father in the US. Fingers crossed that life and travel will somehow resume some normality.

ecgz88

Alaska are offering free cancellation for tickets they issue (starting in 027). Tickets issued by other airlines with a different carrier code (ticket numbers that don’t begin with “027”) are subject to the waiver policy of the other airline.

I just want to make sure Alaska give free cancellation for partner flight awards for travel through December 31, 2020. Does anybody know for sure?

Thanks!

eponymous_coward

Does the partner flight award ticket number start with "027"? Then there is your answer.

Spoiler: any Alaska award ticket starts with "027".

A1pax

Not sure the time frame for free cancellation for partner flight awards, but I got this for flights in early July. Instead of waiting closer to travel dates (early July) i have decided to cancel AS award booking for niece from Australia to US flying with QF. I could not cancel the booking online so I phoned AS and the call centre staff in Phoenix answered the call within 5 mins, processed the cancellation to put my AS points back into my account immediately. She said the refunds of the taxes and partners fee would take 2 weeks. A few days later I got confirmation emails saying these would be refunded to my credit card (the one I used for paying the fees initially) within the same time frame.

flyingstudent

I called to cancel and FJ and QF award for Nov without any cancel fees.