Alaska Atmos launched a few weeks ago to much fanfare, with a lot of buzz centered around the program changes and new premium credit card. One uncertainty that had persisted was how Alaska would handle premium cabin tickets booked through partner airlines. Alaska has long been known for its generous class of service bonuses on premium cabin paid flights booked and flown through partners. The latest program information hadn’t addressed whether or not those would be maintained in the new Atmos program. However, we have been able to confirm with Alaska representatives that there are no changes to the partner earn charts as published today — only tickets sold via Alaska Air Group (and ticketed on Alaska ticket stock) will follow the new choice-based structure.
As a reminder, Alaska this year unified the partner earn chart, with revenue flights booked on partner sites earning the same bonuses. In the past, some partners (like British Airways) had higher class of service bonuses than others, but these days you earn the same class of service bonus across partners.
The good news is that Alaska tells us that there is no change to the rate at which miles and status points are earned for flights booked through partner sites. The new choice-based earning structure applies to flights booked through Alaska and ticketed on Alaska ticket stock.
In other words, if you book a paid partner business class fare through AlaskaAir, you’ll earn based on the style you choose (distance, fare, or segments). If you book via a partner site, you’ll continue to earn distance-based points as per the chart above (in that example, 125% of distance flown in both redeemable points and status points).
That earning structure is relevant for many folks because there are times when it makes sense to book paid business class tickets through, for example, a credit card portal in order to take advantage of elevated point value when using points to pay for your flight. Presumably because Alaska won’t have access to the revenue information for such a flight, if you enter your Alaska Atmos number on an eligible flight booked on a partner site, you’ll earn according to that chart above.
On the other hand, if you book partner-operated flights on Alaska-issued ticket stock, you’ll earn based on the method you choose when the new program goes into effect in the new year.
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How crazy is that? You earn more Alaska miles for business class on partners than Alaska itself. Even for Alaska flights you might be better off buying them through a partner (if you can).
Not really crazy or new for many airlines.
Just to clarify, are there class-of-service bonuses when booking through Alaska? If you choose to earn via distance, you earn the same when booking via Alaska regardless of class of service? And elite bonuses only apply to Alaska-booked flights, not partner flights?
COS bonuses are gone for flights booked through Alaska, whether on a partner or on Alaska itself. You really have to be very careful about the way you want to earn, as distance is only going to benefit people if they primarily fly cheap tickets over long distances.
I feel like removing COS bonuses was a bit of a stealth devaluation hidden in this new “choice” system. They make it sound like distance-based earning is preserving the way you’ve always earned with Alaska, but if you flew premium cabins with any regularity that’s not going to be the case.
Right, the post notes that they are gone for flights booked / ticketed through Alaska.
Wouldn’t you come out ahead choosing revenue-based in that case though? Like let’s say that you regularly fly paid business class round trip from New York to London. That’s got to be around $2500 at best most of the time these days, right? (and often more). At a base of 5x, that’s ~12,500 miles round trip (I know not exactly because it’s not based on taxes, but even if we say that the base fare is $2K, that’s still 10K miles round trip). At about 7,000 miles flown round trip, you’d have been looking at about 8,750 miles with the 25% class of service bonus, right? You’ll come out ahead with revenue-based earning if that’s your situation.
I certainly understand that there are probably examples that exist where people will come out behind, but the math seems to me to be designed to do a pretty good job of keeping things about even or a little bit better. The big gotcha is that you have to choose one or the other and stick with it even if your travel patterns change. That does stink. At the same time, I imagine that there are many people who will have a relatively clear idea of what their year is likely to entail. Not everyone, but more than a few people do most likely I’d think?
I don’t love the example, but I do see your point. NYC-LON is a very competitive route, a $2,500 fare for transatlantic business class is very low (a bit more common on this route that has super capacity), and this isn’t a common route for people who actually fly the airline often, most of whom will be based on the west coast.
I was thinking more about premium transcons, which would have a far less favorable outcome, until I realized that you can’t book AA transcons on Alaska’s website. So there’s no real difference which method you choose, as those flights are going to be subject to the partner pricing regardless.
Alaska’s own transcons are more reasonably priced as they’re not lie flat, and with those you’re coming out roughly even (around $1,000 fare, which is going to net 5k for either calculation), although pricing can often be higher than that.
Where this is really going to make a difference for Alaska flyers is business class mainland to Hawaii or on the new international routes out of SEA. Those rates tend to be much higher and you’ll be far behind with the distance model.