timely thread for me. I've got million miler gold on American and I'm about to do my annual "almost a new year, do I pile on more miles on American or try to get Alaska status" analysis. This year is different -- now that credit card miles don't count toward million miler (in my case 2 million miler) status on American, I figure with ~1.25 million miles on AA, 2 million miles is out of reach, so I might as well have the miles credit toward Alaska's program. First time I reached that decision.

AA elites do not get a free checked luggage allowance on AS. AA elites do have a free checked luggage allowance on MQ flights flown for AA (currently all of them).

Dumb question: I assume it doesn't matter if the flights are booked via AA.com or Alaska's website, so long as one enters an AA FF#, is that correct?

Yup.

Cheers.

Which is a lot more than your AAirline gives us Alaska elites. I'm quite sure it's because AA's old-school management still has that "something special in the air" mentality. At least from us, you get a lower cost baggage fee than you charge us, checked bags delivered to the carousel in 20 minutes or you get a voucher (unlike lucky-if-it's 30-45 minutes to start), cleaner planes and better onboard service compared to cranky AA FAs.

Having suffered through wretched treatment onboard, cramped dirty 757s, baggage fees for 4-days lost-bags with no apology never mind refund, and bags that take 45 minutes to start coming off the carousel in SEA, DEN, MIA this year so far on AA, trust me, AS members flying AA have it a lot worse than you AA guys flying AS.

Yes, we get priority boarding as a courtesy, not as an airline policy, from some GAs at a very few stations like SEA. Otherwise we get squat other than EQM.

When AA management starts treating its AS partner and their customers with respect and customer-friendly policies, I'm sure AS will be happy to offer the same reciprocal benefits that it does with DL. Where I get free bags, elite priority boarding, and upgrade chances on DL, and DL Medallions get the same on AS.

I don't necessarily agree that every AS flyer ends up getting "wretched treatment onboard, cramped dirty 757s, baggage fees for 4-days lost-bags with no apology never mind refund", I will agree that AA elites get better treatment on AS than AS elites get on AA--no question.

Indeed it does! And now the latest thread has been merged into the thread noted above. Please note that you can use the Search This Thread feature to look for additional information, and that the corresponding Wiki page that is linked from the first post.

/Moderator

Or AS could just join OW so AS elites could get reciprocal benefits not just on AA and vice-versa for AA elite on AS, but across all the other 10 (+3 more additional) OW carriers when flying abroad. AS would be a perfect fit to fill in the North American West Coast gap for OW.

Of course if AS were to join OW, MVP = AA GLD = OW Ruby, MVP Gold = AA PLT = OW Sapphire, and MVP Gold 75k = AA EXP = OW Emerald, so it kinda dilutes trying to requalify for AA elite status for reciprocal OW benefits as elite status on ASMP has a lower threshold than AAdv

A few days ago, a checkin agent at AS told me that as of today they will extend some more benefits to AA Elite, like free beg checkin and more. Did anyone hear more details?

A new thread entitled New Elite Status Benefits on Alaska Airlines Oct 26, 2011 has been started here, documenting the new reciprocal perquisites and benefits AS and AA are providing each other's elite frequent flyer program members.

Please follow the discussion of newAAdvantage elite member benefits whilst flying Alaska Airlines in that new thread. It was started because this thread is four years+ old, and has some incorrect and obsolete information and a number of (sensu stricto) off topic posts among the good stuff.

Thanks! /Moderators