When Alaska announced changes to its program last year, one of the features that excited us most was the ability to earn elite qualifying miles (EQMs) for award tickets. While a couple of other airlines (Delta and Virgin among them) award some sort of elite credit for awards booked on their own metal, Alaska announced that it would offer 1 elite qualifying mile per mile flown both on Alaska-operated flights and on partner award tickets. Members are now reporting that the first elite qualifying miles for award flights have been posting to accounts today.
Elite Qualifying Miles (EQMs) posted for Alaska awards first, now partner awards also
Yesterday, Tim shared with the rest of the Frequent Miler team that EQMs from his completed 2025 Alaska-operated awards posted to his Alaska account. At the time, he noted that elite credit for partner-operated awards had not yet posted to Alaska accounts.
We followed up with Alaska for comment, but then Tim noticed that EQMs from all of his 2025 partner awards began posting today. I expect others will notice the same.
This is awesome news that really makes the Alaska program even more interesting as it provides some incentive for redeeming miles through Alaska. I’ve previously written about how my entire family will likely earn Alaska MVP status this year based on award tickets booked through Alaska mileage plan. That’s awesome.
Keep in mind that you won’t earn redeemable miles with award travel, just “elite qualifying miles”, which you could think of as credit toward elite status. I love that Alaska has retained 1 mile per mile flown as the unit of measurement. That’s in part because I have some long-distance awards booked later this year for travel between the US and South Pacific and also between the US and Europe.
It will be interesting to see whether this system leads to some end-of-year long-distance “mileage run” award booking. The good news is that Alaska seems to have the system figured out and properly implemented, so you can expect that partner awards will likely credit accurately moving forward.
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Mine still hasn’t posted but traveling companion did. We booked flights out of her account and both put our Alaska frequent flier number on the reservation. Has anyone else run into this issue?
Nick, have your Greenlight miles showed up either in mileage activity or for elite miles?
I didn’t write about or do that deal.
Can confirm.
All my Alaska and partner flights posted today.
I just checked my Alaska account and it looks like Alaska is retroactively apply the EQM for previous award trips. I had a short AA flight booked with AS miles on 3/15. There was no activity in my account until today, but now I see that it says “SPECIAL SERVICES: AWARD FLIGHT ELITE QUALIFYING MILES PARTNER”
I also had a short AS flight booked with miles on 4/2, but I don’t see the EQMs from that flight yet.
Pretty much the same here. My Alaska award flight of Mar 31 has posted but my AA flight booked with AS miles hasn’t yet.
Nice, just took Starlux RT last week and one of them just posted today.