Anyone has any tips on finding Alaska Airlines award availability?

Frequent Flyer Programs
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Hi

I have a shipload of Alaska airlines miles from buying a couple of Marriott hotel and airline packages. We have maximum flexibility to fly short notice and wanted to try and do an around the world trip going from NZ via Asia, coming back Europe-US-NZ.

I can find the flights and availability in premium cabins going via Asia and on to Europe two weeks out, however cannot find anything to get back from Europe-US-NZ which would be 6-7 weeks out from the date I was searching which was yesterday. I was searching from LHR-US and there is availability in J on BA but with massive surcharges of around $500US per award. Then zero availability from US-NZ/AU except with massive trips, like 27-30 hours. The mixed cabin indications on AS are a real rort as the long haul trips are in Y NOT J.

Can someone experienced with AS Mileage plan advise on the best way to use up these points from AU/NZ when one doesn’t want to do the CX Asia route to Europe. I’m open to any suggestions. Would a trip round the US use up the miles or be viable. Lack of availability on anything outside of CX to Asia seems to be the problem with AS miles. I can’t even find anything from YVR-HKG or vice versa. TIA.

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Hi ecco,

Have you looked at other airline options?

https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mileage-plan/use-miles/award-charts

How many seats are you looking for?

Flying premium out of UK always involve a large APD tax. You can try flying out of CDG/AMS for example to avoid this.

Direct flights between USA and AUS is very popular and very hard to come by in short notice.

I know Alaska Mileage Plan sees 1 less seat than what Cathay can see too.

Good luck.

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Thanks I ended up booking MAD-HKG.

Cheers

 

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i found their booking engine sneaky too, if searching australia-USA for example it will show a business award if the connecting flight within australia has a business seat, but the transpacific segment is economy. easy to get fooled unless you check fine print. also it couldnt see one business seat that i could see on qantas. so the low price redemptions are attractive but availability is not so great.

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