Don't choose this if you want to use miles for international flights
Written: Nov 22 '07
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: One-way awards on Alaska which is 1/2 of roundtrip awards
Cons: Almost impossible to get international flights
The Bottom Line: Good plan for domestic travelers, terrible plan for international travelers.
|
|
|
| seek2find77's Full Review: Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan |
I've been a member of the Alaska Mileage Plan for a long time. So far, I've only been successful in redeeming domestic tickets. In the past, I tried to get flights to Asia with no success. In the last few months, I called about 10 times to get a flight to Europe 10 months out (you can book up to 10 mths out). They couldn't find any coach seat with their partners. I've been sitting on my miles for a long time and want to use them. My hope is that this will improve after they open up award travel on KLM and Air France...whenever this happens. :-(
However, the Alaska Mileage Plan is excellent for people who want to use miles for destinations on Alaska's route. Most quarters, they have the Mileage Plan sale where you can flight on selected routes for reduced miles. A couple of times, you could fly to Mexico for like 20k. You can also redeem one-way tickets for half of a round trip ticket. This is awesome flexibility.
It's also a good program for people who want to use their miles for domestic routes that the Alaska partners serve. I haven't had issues with this, given some date flexibility.
The miles never expire - though I just learned that they are getting around this by deactivating accounts with no activity for 2 years:
"Effective April 1, 2008 accounts with no mileage activity for the previous 2 years will become inactive and the miles will be removed from the account."
In general, I think it's easier to accrue miles on Alaska than other major airlines. If you book your ticket online (even reward tickets!), you get 1000 miles. Besides flying, there are many ways to earn miles, like dining, shopping, etc. They have specials where you can get miles just for signing up on a partner site.
http://www.alaskaair.com/as/mileageplan/Terms-Conditions.asp#mileage-expiration
Recommended:
No
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
seek2find77
|
|
Reviews written: 4
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.