Alaska Airlines Joins the Oneworld Alliance

What About Alaska Mileage Plan Redemptions?

Now let’s talk about what concerns us most as travellers who primarily redeem points for travel, and who place a particularly high value on the versatility of the current Alaska Mileage Plan program: what does full membership in the Oneworld alliance mean for Mileage Plan award redemptions going forward?

There appears to be limited movement on the redemption side as of Alaska’s official entry into Oneworld this week – although there are still a couple of interesting developments to note. 

New Redemption Charts Coming Summer 2021

Earlier this year, Alaska had indicated that partner redemptions on all Oneworld airlines (outside of their existing partnerships) won’t be fully online until the summer of 2021.

At the same time, Alaska has also committed to making no alterations to their existing partner award charts (including fellow Oneworld members like Cathay Pacific or Japan Airlines) as of March 31, as well as offering members at least 90 days’ notice of any changes to existing award charts.

Indeed, we reached out to Alaska Airlines about upcoming changes to Mileage Plan in the context of their new Oneworld membership, and were told the following:

For the six member airlines we already had existing partnerships with prior to oneworld, our guests can still redeem miles for flights: American Airlines, British Airways, Qantas, Finnair, Cathay Pacific and Japan Airlines (plus oneworld connect partner Fiji Airways).

Redemptions on all remaining alliance airlines will go live this summer. We’ll announce award pricing for new oneworld partners as redemptions are launched, and as always, we’ll strive to give at least 90 days’ notice if changes are coming to any current partner awards. 

My impression here is that the redemption rates on the remaining Oneworld airlines (Iberia, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian, S7 Airlines, and SriLankan Airlines) may not all be launched at once.

In fact, if I had to speculate, I’d say it’s more likely that we continue to see partner-by-partner redemption charts (similar to what we have now) rather than a unified award chart across all Oneworld airlines. 

Qatar Airways Partner Awards Delayed

Separately from Alaska’s entry into Oneworld, Alaska and Qatar Airways had launched a bilateral partnership of their own back in December 2020. 

At the time, it was reported that the ability to redeem Alaska miles on Qatar Airways flights (including Qatar Airways Qsuites business class, widely regarded as one of the world’s leading business class products) would go live as of Alaska’s entry into Oneworld on March 31. 

However, that development now appears to be delayed – the Qatar Airways partner page on the Alaska website now indicates that “award booking will be available starting in the fall of 2021”.

This means that we’ll likely have to wait quite a while longer before finding out how many Alaska miles will be required to book an aspirational Qatar Airways Qsuites redemption.

There’s Still Time to Book Alaska’s Best Sweet Spots

While we’ll have to wait a bit longer before finding out the award charts for the new Oneworld partners, the award charts for the existing Oneworld partners have not changed as of March 31, giving us some more time to book Alaska’s best sweet spots before they possibly undergo changes. 

Alaska Mileage Plan is known for offering some excellent award chart sweet spots for travelling on some of the world’s best airlines, such as:

• 70,000 Alaska miles for Cathay Pacific First Class between North American and Hong Kong, followed by a stopover, and then a Cathay Pacific business class flight to South Africa or the Middle East

• 70,000–75,000 Alaska miles for Japan Airlines First Class between North America and Tokyo, followed by a stopover, and then a Japan Airlines business class flight to the rest of Asia

• 50,000 Alaska miles for Cathay Pacific business class between North America and Asia

• 60,000–65,000 Alaska miles for Japan Airlines business class between North America and Asia

• 55,000 Alaska miles for Qantas business class between North America and Australia

• 80,000–100,000 Alaska miles for Singapore Airlines business class between North America and Singapore

Those are just a few examples of the exceptionally low rates that Alaska charges for premium class travel, and the excellent value that results. And since these redemption rates are relatively low compared to the rest of the market, most observers feel that the award prices are most likely to increase rather than decrease or stay the same. 

On top of that, Alaska also offers very generous stopover and routing policies – the ability to add a stopover on a one-way award is extremely valuable, and so too is the opportunity to book creative routings via the Alaska search engine. 

At the moment, it’s unclear whether there are any changes planned to Alaska’s best award chart sweet spots, although I’m pleased to see that they remain bookable for the time being, and that we’ll be given at least 90 days’ notice if there are any changes coming later in 2021.