Miles to Alaska
 

My only goal this year is to fly to Alaska. I've got about 11,000 Delta miles and 15,000 United miles.

I can use some Marriott points and future charges on my Starwood AMEX to reach 25,000 in one of the two FF accounts but probably not both.

Which airline program would you focus one?

Even though I have less Delta miles, I know Delta flies to Anchorage. United doesn't, and I don't think their alliance partners do either (but I could be wrong on that).

And is it even realistic to try and fly from Tulsa to Alaska on an FF reward? I'm aiming for mid to late Sept, which is not the peak season there but it's not the coldest one either. Once you get 25,000 miles, can you realistically expect to get there from Tulsa with FF miles? (I don't know since I've never claimed a flight award)

Any thoughts you might have would be greatly appreciated.

PS: I've looked at starting an Alaska Airlines FF account because their 20,000 threshold looks good. But I'd have to depart from Denver (inconvenient) and i'd have to have 25K if I used one of their partners, right? So I'm thinking Alaska Airlines is not the way to go since I have no miles with them anyway. I've also got old TWA miles in my AAdvantage account but only 6,000 miles there.

If I am not mistaken AA is a partner with Alaska you might try that

I think I found an answer to one of my questions - United doesn't appear to have any partners going to Alaska. I thought maybe Air Canada but I don't think they go to Anchorage.

Which kind of gets me back to one main question about whether my destinations are realistic.

I'd be willing to give up on Delta altogether and change my goal to Bar Harber, Maine, which means beefing up my United account (15,000 miles) to 25K. So my question is this: Oklahoma to Portland, Maine would mean at least a couple connections on United. Is Tulsa to Maine doable on a United frequent flyer award in September?

Just looking for your best guess. Thanks a lot!

OK, thanks for the advice on AA and Alaska. i'll look into that. It's just that I only have a very small amount of AA miles and no Alaska miles so I feel like I'll never be able to reach 25,000 in either one of those accounts.

One point to remember - at least for now you can use United miles on Delta domestic flights. You can also fly to Portland, ME on DL. That's not too far from Bar Harbor, and you are probably going to rent a car anyway.

When did United stop flying to ANC?

According to what I find, you can get flights from SEA to ANC on United.

William

UA has at least these flights to ANC:
SEA-ANC #1695 or 1186 depending on date
SFO-ANC #335 Jun-Sep
DEN-ANC #1542 May-Jan
ORD-ANC #1201, 1211 Jun-Sep

AC has at least 1 flight daily from YVR-ANC

AS has a lot of flights SEA-ANC every day and operates an ORD-ANC in the summer.

You might wait to see what happens with the Delta codeshare with NW and CO. They both fly to ANC more often than Delta. I have had good luck getting FF tickets into ANC on NW and CO for low 20K miles even in the busy summer season, with not a lot of advance notice.

If the airline you select will permit open jaw award travel, you might try flying into Anchorage, seeing what you want to see, then taking the train north to Fairbanks, seeing what they have, and departing from there. Open-jaw travel lets you see more places for the same number of FF miles. AA permits open jaw, but I don't know about the other carriers.

I've had no difficulty booking AA (and AS) award travel to ANC and to FAI...in fact, I'm headed back to FAI next month.

Edited to add this link to a rumor about DL pulling out of ANC: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum21/HTML/008968.html

[This message has been edited by Middle_Seat (edited 01-20-2003).]

Thanks for the great advice, everyone.

Sounds like I've got plenty of options with either United or Delta, so I'm just going to build miles and use the best award I can find in the first program that gets me enough miles.

The open-jaw travel would be great - I was already planning to visit Denali and the Alaska Railroad is already one of my bookmarked sites... so the Fairbanks thing would be good.

Got to get out of Tulsa once in awhile - you can only visit the Prayer Tower at Oral Roberts University so many times before the thrill begins to fade...

thanks again for the good information.

Alaska is much more than ANC just as the United States is more than New York.

Alaska Airlines is the only airline that flies to a lot of Alaskan airports. A few others fly to FAI. Of course, there are the many commuter airlines that fly in Alaska.

Other than the hotel point transfers ,how do you plan to get the miles on DL or United? If flying UA (or *A partner) you might want to look into the UA visa.
I think the going deal is 15K for $60. On the DL front...I think that there is no annual fee this year on the DL AMEX Gold card, which would net you 10K.
I hope you write a trip report so we can all share in your trip http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif


Edited for spelling and stuff

[This message has been edited by El Boocho (edited 01-21-2003).]

That 15K bonus for the United credit card looked awfully good, so I got one around the first of the year - I haven't got my statement yet but it doesn't appear they are going to charge me the annual fee now.

My new Delta card, on the other hand, shows an $80 fee tacked on right away when I go to the AmEx website - haven't received my statement on that one either but I don't really want to pay any annual fees if I don't have to. I'm going to ask Delta AmEx if they can bump the fee down to $30 (said somewhere in the literature they sent that you can have a $30 fee if you already carry another "qualified card" from AmEx (I have a couple other AmEx cards, so I'm hoping those qualify).

Does anyone know whether the Starwood card qualifies for the reduced $30 fee on the Delta sky miles card?

Anyway, I'm already pocketing the 10K Delta bonus and the 15K United bonus (and hoping I don't have to pay any annual fees for either, but I'll go ahead and pay the $30 fee for the Delta card if I have to because I would like to use it for gas and groceries and get the double miles).

This site and the "More Room Throughout Coach" one have been very helpful, mainly because I used to travel for business in Detroit fairly often but I won't be doing much flying in the next year or so - new baby on the way - maybe 2 or 3 business trips to the East Coast in 2003 and that's pretty much it. So I figure my best option for earning miles over the next yaer or so is to earn miles on the credit card(s). Plus, I've got about 30,000 Marriott Rewards points I can use for hotel stays or air miles.

AC has one or two flights a day YVR - ANC flight but only in the summer

You may be able to buy ff miles directly from the airline if it looks like you will come up short.

I tried without success in September of last year to book a single DL ticket using UA miles for travel in July of this year (so I could save some of my DL miles); I was, however, able to reserve a total of 7 tickets for the same travel dates on DL using DL miles. The year before (2001) I tried to no avail to book award travel in June 2002 to HI on UA using DL miles (UA served more destinations within HI), again many months in advance, but had no trouble booking 4 tickets on DL using DL miles for the same travel dates which were unavailable through UA. It seems to me that the seat allocations are very low for this type of cross-airline award, and that you are better off building miles on the airline on which you plan to travel using an award.

jmartin --

If you end up going to Denali, I recommend a cold Alaskan Pale Ale and a caribou sandwich at the West Rib in Talkeetna. The next morning, have the "standard breakfast" at the Roadhouse in Talkeetna. I strongly recommend hiring a bush pilot at Talkeetna Air Taxi (or any of the other 3 out of Talkeetna) to fly you in and around Denali (incorrectly, in my opinion, named Mt. McKinley!) and the rest of the Alaska Range. It's a truly awe-inspiring experience. Wife and I went climbing there for our honeymoon this past Summer. We flew DL to ANC and had no problems getting FC award seats 6 mos ahead of time.

When you're booking your award ticket / regular ticket, keep this in mind:

-The main airlines are AS (Alaska), UA (United), and DL (Delta).

-DL has two daily flights from SLC.

-UA has more flights to other destinations, but I'm not sure where because I'm a loyal MVP.

-You can't beat AS for scheduling. They run more ANC-SEA flights than everyone else combined, because this is one of their lifeelines. These flights are always packed, though, on 733s and 734s.

-AS is the only major carrier to fly to FAI - DL pulled out of ANC-FAI about a year ago, I think. So you can probably forget the open jaw, unfortunately.


As a resident of Anchorage, I can tell you there are very few things worth seeing. Maybe the Alaska Native Heritage Center, maybe hiking Flattop Mtn. or the Coastal Trail. Don't stay in ANC for long - it's really a dirty and relatively ugly city. Anchorage is not Alaska.

Spend some time in the Southeast panhandle - Juneau, Sitka, Wrangell. Those cities are very beautiful, and have a climate more like Seattle than Barrow.

Come in the summer - unless you like winter sports, there's not much to do or see, because everything is in hibernation, including many of the people (like me).

If you have any other questions, e-mail me at red_cadet(at)hotmail.com.

-red_cadet

"It's simple. Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam."

I'll definitely go to the West Rib in Talkeetna...

Also, thanks for the advice on Anchorage - I'll try and see more of the state and check out the areas south of there.

If you have any specific questions about ANC or Alaska in general -- don't hesitate to drop me an email.

Thing 1:

Unless you get an airline CCard and beef up those accounts, it will be a bit of time before you get to 25k on both airlines. It can be done but it takes some time and work. Start with idine and whatever promotions you can find in both airlines and in both forums on miles.

Also, a short, cheap flight for a 'mileage run' will help as well, with things like online booking bonuses and kiosk use, etc. For example, I earned several thousand more K miles on a UAL trip to Vegas last Sept.

If you bring both accts up, you can still partner a DL award and a UAL award. That's 2 FF tickets on one carrier--either one.

Thing 2:

This may or may not be useful to you but what I might consider is this:

Transfer all the points from both accts into HHilton (you can still do the DL ones right now, but they are soon pulling out, I think) and you will rack up a good 50k in HH program. That's a few nights if you need accom.

If not, find a family member or friend who would gladly trade the use of your hotel stays that you can arrange for THEM, for an airline ticket or two that THEY can possibly arrange for YOU!

I once used one of my miles award ticket for a skiing friend of mine who paid me back by buying lift passes, dinners, accomodations, and ski rentals for a whole week in Tahoe. SO we both won and got what we wanted.

good luck! Avoid bears.

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If speed is not your thing, distance may as well be. Enjoy and embrace it all!