In our sequence Award Success, we often spotlight worthwhile redemptions that present wonderful worth, and I used to be capable of guide a Enterprise Class ticket on Finnair just lately utilizing Alaska Airways Mileage Plan.
Alaska Mileage Plan is without doubt one of the only a few applications left that permits reserving sure (not all) Enterprise Class Awards at moderately affordable ranges and even embody a stopover on many routes alongside the best way, one thing that has been principally discontinued within the loyalty world.
Compared, Mileage Plan nonetheless permits the form of redemption ranges American AAdvantage had ~ 10 years in the past earlier than they jacked up their award chart and stopped permitting stopovers.
The draw back is that Mileage Plan nonetheless – years after becoming a member of oneWorld – has issues (learn: doesn’t permit) to mix numerous completely different airways in a single ticket and never all airways can be found for all metropolis pairs.
That is extraordinarily annoying, and now we have reported this prior to now. I managed to burn my Alaska miles all the way down to 60,001 and I discovered a possibility to wipe the account out when trying to find a flight to Switzerland this week.
That is moderately affordable in comparison with the opposite choices I checked out utilizing miles from Bangkok to Europe.
Solely 60,000 miles plus $47 in taxes and charges may be very aggressive, although Finnair Enterprise Class isn’t essentially the most prestigious Enterprise Class round. How a lot worse than THAI Enterprise Class can it’s? I’m truly fairly curious to strive Finnair.
The ticket was issued instantly, and taxes had been very reasonable:
Alaska Airways is without doubt one of the few applications that cost a companion award reserving price. I’ve criticized that previously as a result of there’s merely no foundation for that. Positive, it’s solely $12.50 and actually irrelevant within the grand scheme of issues, but it surely’s not an actual tax, and there’s no guide labor concerned to ticket this reservation. Alaska additionally doesn’t incur an additional expense for issuing tickets for different airways.
After all, they need to reimburse the companion provider (on this case, Finnair) for the award itself, however this has nothing to do with this price.
What I do like about Alaska Mileage Plan is you can nonetheless cancel and alter the tickets freed from cost, as they’ve carried out away with all of the penalties in the meanwhile.
I’d use that possibility ought to an award ticket on SWISS pop up on BKK-ZRH. Nonetheless, I don’t have many hopes that this can materialize. There may be THAI proper now, however I don’t really feel like flying Thai Airways to Europe. The 1 am departure is brutal as properly. I actually don’t like flying in a single day to Europe, not to mention leaving at 1 am.
The Finnair daytime flight is significantly better for me. I like with the ability to arrive within the night and go straight to mattress. Helps so much with the adjustment for the time distinction.
Conclusion
I used to be capable of ticket one other award with Alaska Airways Mileage Plan from Bangkok to Zurich for an especially affordable quantity in taxes and miles. Such awards are uncommon, and airfare income charges on this route are fairly excessive in Enterprise Class. I actually miss the previous occasions when wonderful premium offers had been available out of Bangkok to Europe and North America.
If I find yourself utilizing this ticket as booked it is going to mark the top of my mileage adventures with Mileage Plan in the meanwhile, as I’ve utterly depleted the account stability on there, most of which I’ve accrued throughout journeys utilizing the notorious Vietnam-USA First Class “Particular” on New Yr’s Eve a couple of years.