StephanP37

With the great announcement by Alaska that we are all maintaining status regardless this year I am thinking it is a good time to use some of my points I have been hoarding. I normally never use them because I always want to pay for the tickets and get the EQM to maintain status. First question is do you consider it a great time to use our stored up miles right now for normal flights, (normal flights meaning flights that we normally would have taken anyway and not some exotic dream vacation or FC Emirates type deal), or am I missing anything there?

Secondly my stupid question of the week, I realized I have never used my points for booking a normal coach Alaska booking, so I am wondering do all the same MVP75 upgrades apply that would with a cash purchase? Thank you all for your thoughts and help as always!

eponymous_coward

I’m not using stored miles now because who wants to fly to Hawaii or Florida and get quarantined for two weeks? Certainly Hawaiians and Floridians would rather you stay home rather than risk spreading coronavirus. None of my “normal travel” is essential travel. All business travel for my company is cancelled. There’s no reason to spend miles right now.

Perhaps if things are “normal” I might consider using miles in a cash crunch, but I don’t generate anything close to six figure mileage balances in a year unless I outright buy miles. Alaska redemptions are often 1-2 cents per mile. You can do the math and see how far 100,000 miles goes at 1-2 cents a mile. Do I want to spend those miles going to Vegas on an Alaska flight or to Hong Kong on a Cathay flight in F? Not a hard question for me. If you can generate more miles than you can feasibly use for longhaul premium redemptions you may have a different answer than mine (which is no, I use miles for longhaul premium redemptions and cash for shorter cheaper trips).

75Ks will be upgraded on W “saver” class awards behind other 75K award and paid fares, but ahead of Golds and MVPs.

StephanP37

Thanks EP! and yeah wont be flying right now but the trip specifically is to Boston in August to see Kobe's HOF induction. Although who knows if there will be public gatherings even then.

ctporter

I think that is the key to using miles, is it a trip that means something to you? Then the emotional part of the cost has to be taken into account. It could be that what you really value is the FC experience to Asia or Europe, or it could be to attend a special event. You have the miles, why not use them? I have used mine for routine domestic travel when I wanted to take my husband along, or to fly relatives to where they needed to go, or even once to snag a trip home after American cancelled my return flight and I found an AS flight that was leaving for home in an hour. (for me that was worth it rather than doing the whole getting home a day later, a hotel, rebook to an odd connection the next day, dealing with meals etc thing)

PDXPremier

I think for at least the next few months, anyone with AS status of any kind will likely be upgraded so you would definitely want to book W (economy saver) awards when flying AS metal.

finlandia

I think it makes sense to consider using miles for peak-time domestic travel. For example, flying between Hawaii and the east coast at Thanksgiving or New Year's returns ~2.9 cpm. I'm definitely going to switch those to miles this year. Otherwise it's not really cost effective.

I'm in a situation where I sometimes just scrape by to make MVPG. My strategy at those times is to use miles for expensive trips (see above) and then substitute a cheapish MR during a low period. It ends up as a net savings.

eponymous_coward

Yeah, I've used miles for very not normal stuff on AS- getting a friend's daughter home to Anchorage after his funeral.

It's pretty rare that I see this- it's way more common for me to see longhaul J/F out of SEA available at those peak times and saver W(coach)/A(first) on AS isn't there, and the award fares in miles end up pretty eye-watering even compared to cash prices.

AS is probably pretty close to DL in making sure that it's hard to wring excess value on their own metal redemptions out of hubs because they're pretty good at matching award availability buckets to cash prices. Not that it can't be done, I just don't find it easy.

The killer part becomes making any needed AS positioning flights in W/A line up on a J/F partner award during, say, late December. The way I did it for a trip at the end of 2020 is flying W to SJC, long layover, A to LAX, another long layover. Not ideal but hopefully schedule changes and a little customer service sweet talking ("I wouldn't mind taking coach on a nonstop to LAX, think you can open up a seat on this flight I feed you?") might help. Assuming coronavirus doesn't make this effort LOL-worthy.

Probably, assuming you can find it. I would hope the floodgates would be open...

pdxtraveller

I have been able to find some TransCons in First Class in October for only 30,000 miles--standard is 70,000.
When you consider that "Main" was 20,000, seems like a great deal to me.

Xrayman

I mostly fly domestic and my main mode of using miles is for the last minute flight. Where the mileage cost is 20-30K and cash ticket is $500+ for a coach ticket.

ASA_1

I’m thinking of cancelling and rebooking flights with miles Now given my 75k status is locked in. My question is, when I cancel a flight today, the $ goes to my wallet with an expiration date of when I originally booked that flight. If I rebook a flight with those wallet funds in a few months, does it reset the my wallet expiration date?

Flying for Fun

I always equate 30K to CX J HKG<->AU, 50K to CX J NA<->Asia with connecting service on AS to/from the international gateway. JL J GMP-HND-SIN for 25K in January was an excellent value for repositioning too. However, I also find value in AS & AA redemptions mostly International between Canada, USA & Mexico. Not so much US domestically as I find US airfares to be inexpensive comparatively.

YLW is a pinch point for me and fares can be very expensive. I will use Awards when I can get better than 2 cpm on my redemptions. For example $485 for YLW-SEA-LAX or a 20K N award & ~$45 in taxes. I would have only earned 1444 EQM on the route.

But it gets better! AS has very generous routings and allows for a stopover on a one-way award. In the above example, it was 20K to LAX but it was also 20K to JFK and in querying that route one option was YLW-SEA-LAX-JFK. Perfect! I booked YLW-SEA-LAX built in a stopover for an arbitrary future date knowing I could change it with a fee waiver later. That got me to LAX when I needed to be there and I had a LAX-JFK in the bag.

I really needed to get to YVR but won't fly WS and AC wanted over CAD $400 for 2 pax for a 35 minute QX400 flight. Instead, I booked the N award ×2, spent a night in an LAX Hotel, purchased the cheapest flight the following day; $118 LAX-SEA-YVR, both upgraded and then did a SDC to a better flight time and upgraded again. Total outlay with hotel was cheaper than flying YLW-YVR. From YVR we had a CX F/J award. AS checked our baggage all the way through on the seperate revenue & award tickets.

Now that CX is no longer flying YVR-JFK I can say that I was able to book YVR-JFK(F)-HKG(J)-CPT(J) with an 11-day stopover in HKG for 70K all on one award. The LAX-JFK in the bag came in handy when I needed to reposition to JFK for a CX Black Friday Sale fare back to CPT in January.

Other routes I have found value in are YLW-SEA-ATL 20K, ATL-SEA-YLW 20K, AS/AA YLW-SEA-PHX//PHX-GDL in F for 25K offsetting an $1100 AA fare, and PVR-SAN-SEA-YLW for 20K

There is definitely value to be had in domestic or AS international routes. Don't forget AA and take advantage of stopover too.

I can concur. Usually I am on an N award (dynamic pricing between Saver W and refundable Z) I booked our flight last Friday PHX-SEA-YLW four days before departure on a Saver W for 10K each offsetting a $317 fare. We were both upgraded and got an upgrade email confirmation before the reservation confirmation. In all of the AS award examples listed above I/we have been upgraded 100% of the time.

James

ffman999

A somewhat related topic - do you think Alaska will do any sales to buy points this month? April is usually the 50% off month I believe. I know it’s bad timing because people probably aren’t looking to go anywhere, but I need to top off my account to book something for next March (assuming we can even travel next March).

notquiteaff

I will be using my travel bank funds and companion certs for some revenue bookings.

Should there be additional travel, I will consider whether getting from MVP to MVPG is realistically possible. Without some way to earn additional EQMs (DEQM, credit card spend, ...) that is not likely. In that case, since no EQM value is earned with AS revenue travel, I will likely burn miles on AS or other airlines (still have tons of BA and AA miles).

eponymous_coward

They had some miles sales in March and January and they certainly could use some cash... so wait maybe?

notquiteaff

Maybe an RDM+EQM sale? In May after the rollover period ends?