Rumored Dec 5th Award Chart Devaluations?
Dec 6, 2022, 4:57 am
#18
Original Poster
Join Date: Mar 2022
Location: USA
Programs: A3 Silver, Best Western Diamond, Booking.com Genius Level 3, WN Companion Pass, NK Gold
Posts: 38
For what it's worth I don't think the intention is to devalue in December.
If we look at their notice, it seems like they're trying to clarify things for members who are less engaged. Honestly the charts are kind of all over the place, and I would guess most members care about pricing to a region, not pricing for a specific carrier. Hopefully they don't hide award levels for specific carriers though, that would definitely be a step backwards.
This portion is a little more alarming, but is already the case today (Qatar, Condor, Icelandair, Aer Lingus's 280k J award etc.). It does suggest that Alaska's future partners might continue this trend which would be unfortunate.
edit: I did just notice JAL and TN went to "starting at" which sucks and I wish they would be more transparent on what that really means
If we look at their notice, it seems like they're trying to clarify things for members who are less engaged. Honestly the charts are kind of all over the place, and I would guess most members care about pricing to a region, not pricing for a specific carrier. Hopefully they don't hide award levels for specific carriers though, that would definitely be a step backwards.
This portion is a little more alarming, but is already the case today (Qatar, Condor, Icelandair, Aer Lingus's 280k J award etc.). It does suggest that Alaska's future partners might continue this trend which would be unfortunate.
edit: I did just notice JAL and TN went to "starting at" which sucks and I wish they would be more transparent on what that really means
Dec 6, 2022, 8:23 am
#19
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: SEA, but up and down the coast a lot
Programs: Oceanic Airlines Gold Elite
Posts: 20,387
AS and the partner offering extra inventory on top of saver is a "meh" unless AS and the partner collude to remove saver (and frankly that's 100% the partner's decision on the longhaul segment, AS isn't amazingly generous on their own segments, though SFO/LAX/PDX are usually OK-ish).
AS's own award inventory is pretty close to DL's in terms of mapping mileage price to cash price, with some occasional places to recoup value.
Dec 6, 2022, 9:45 am
#20
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: DUB-BOS
Programs: various
Posts: 3,690
I've been down this road too many times to share your optimism. Hopefully you are correct and I can rebook some of my 2023 awards but I have run down my balance to under 1k as I fully expect the current sweet spots to disappear with little notice. They have already said that changes will happen in Dec, and devals are usually mixed in with some other change in an effort to spin it as an 'enhancement'
Dec 6, 2022, 11:33 am
#21
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: LAX/TPE
Programs: United 1K, JAL Sapphire, SPG Lifetime Platinum, National Executive Elite, Hertz PC, Avis PC
Posts: 42,200
Not really, that's how things used to roll at Continental - Thursday was "hey look at this amazing new benefit/product/service/enhancement" followed on Friday with "due to ongoing challenges in the industry, we're going to screw you now with this change".
Given how AS has been behaving lately from some of the posts I've read, I wouldn't put it past them to give you a shiny nickel then slap you upside the head in return.
Given how AS has been behaving lately from some of the posts I've read, I wouldn't put it past them to give you a shiny nickel then slap you upside the head in return.