Unraveling Alaska Airlines' controversial new rules regarding award tickets and mileage awards
loyalty lobby Flag updates to Alaska Airlines award rules such as:
When redeeming miles from your Alaska Mileage Plan account for award tickets, you cannot enter another airline's frequent flyer number and therefore will not be eligible for benefits from another program.
This strikes him as “kind of strange” and suggests he has never seen anything like it.meanwhile one mile at a time says, “This is highly contrary to industry conventional wisdom, as I have never heard of any other airline that does not allow you to change your frequent flyer number based on the airline on which you purchased your award ticket.”
I'm a little surprised at their surprise. Under the rules, you can't redeem Alaska miles for airline tickets and use the status to earn rewards in programs like American AAdvantage or British Airways Executive Club.
And that's actually pretty standard at Oneworld. For example, American Airlines does not allow you to switch your frequent flyer number to either:
- Earn miles with our partners after redeeming your AAdvantage elite status benefits
- When you travel on American Airlines with Partner Benefits benefits, take advantage of AAdvantage elite benefits.
The American AAdvantage Terms of Service states:
If you've already used your AAdvantage® number to earn AAdvantage® Rewards and benefits, such as first or business class upgrades, waived baggage fees, priority boarding, preferred seat access and complimentary services, partner airlines Miles cannot be earned. Preferred/Main Cabin Extra Seat Access.
American Airlines agents are unlikely to help you exchange account numbers in these situations, so many people have used the Finnair website over the years to register their award frequent flyer accounts (for example, I have changed my BA-issued ticket to travel in I want to take advantage of my status as an American.
The idea of redeeming British Airways Avios for American Airlines travel and taking advantage of American's elite status, which gives you extra legroom, priority boarding, and free checked baggage (or upgrades), has been around for years. It's been done before, but it's actually against the law. rule.
In practice, you don't often force this, but that doesn't mean it's never done. I certainly don't think Alaska Airlines will be involved when redeeming Alaska Airlines miles for travel on Qantas and taking advantage of the benefits of a British Airways Status account. But I wouldn't be surprised if it became harder to redeem Alaska miles for travel. in alaska And it has become even more difficult to exchange a BA number or American number to take advantage of status in either of these programs for travel.
