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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Anyone said anything about credit card 1/3 earning and non-air partners 1000/3000 earning yet? Doesn’t seem like any of my spending has posted EQM yet
It posts the following month around the 17th or 18th (at least for me). The notation in your activity will be listed under the last day of the month that it covers (so 31st for January, 28th for February, etc. It will show “Bank of America,” and if you look at the details it says VISA CARD 2025 ELITE QUALIFYING MILES.
I see, that’s why I’ve been ignoring them because they post later but have the same activity date of the original statement. Has your non-air partner EQM been posting the same way? The only thing I have right now that’s over 1 month old was a spending bonus in the shopping portal that was earned last year and posted this year. I’d give them a break if that doesn’t count.
I haven’t personally earned any non-air partner EQMs yet. That said, cc EQMs are earned based on the date of the transaction, regardless of when the statement posts. I’d expect portal bonuses to behave similarly, in which case earning it last year may keep it from qualifying towards 2025 status.
Still nothing from Latam award flights flown in January. Wonder if they’re rolling out airlines in stages?
How do you link Alaska and AA to get points?
[…] credit…would we get any kind of bonus for a higher cabin? No. That’s the short answer. H/T to FM for flagging this […]
Do you get more EQMs if you fly business class?
No. It’s 1 EQM per mile flown.
For paid flights, yes. For award flights, no.
Alaska has a limited presence at my airport but they’re pushing hard to get my business!
Do you need to have your alaska # on the res? What about those of us who change the ff# to take advantage of elite status perks with the operating partner? For example, AA…
I think I can answer this–I added my AA# to a flight booked with Alaska miles a couple weeks ago. Just checked, and it looks like MVP miles automatically posted without any problem.
I’d like to know the answer to this and, indeed, I SHOULD know the answer because I’ve had four award flights: 2 with my AS number always on the flight, one where I switched to my AA number then back to my AS number and one where I switched to AA and was unable to switch back.
Totaling up my EQMs so far it seems that the first three posted as Special Services. But I have about 1,000 more EQMs than accounted for by those flights. The flight that I actually flew with my AA number attached was two segments of 733 and 1117 miles and I don’t see that as a Special Services posting. But I DO see some kind of mileage credit from a an AA flight as though I paid for the flight, but just the longer segment. It’s possible that my FF account was changed on one segment of that flight but not the other.
So I THINK you need to have your AS number on the flight by the time you land, but not 100% sure.
I am AA lifetime Gold, and so added my AA account number to two recent itineraries flying AA using AS miles, so I would get the benefits that come with being Gold. In both instances, I now see my AS account has “special services” posted, with the actual miles flown for those two non-stop flights.
I’m pretty sure the award tickets have to be booked through Alaska, which will not allow you to input alternative FF# at the time of booking. You have to manually change it later and change it back again. I can’t say the time frame but I usually make sure that it’s fully settled before the flight.
Mine posted. Make sure to look at the date flown as that’s where it shows up. I wish alaska would have two columns. One for miles earned and one for elite qualify miles. It’s not easy to follow the difference.
I had diamond with DL up until this year. Dropped down to qualify for platinum this year so I could bump up my AS flying from MVP to Gold. With this change, I’m seeing AS as even more of a winner.
Agreed. I have an EQM total that I can’t account for looking at my mileage history. Definitely the flight I took Thursday is in the EQM total but not yet reflected in the mileage activity but also a for I took any six weeks ago (with my AA, not AS number attached) seems to have posted some EQMs but possibly only one segment. Hard to tell.
If I book a biz class long haul mileage flight on AA, can I credit those to Alaska?would that count towards mileage run for elite status?
Only awards booked with your Alaska miles count. You can’t earn Alaska Elite Qualifying Miles for awards booked using miles from another airline.
Makes sense. What about flying Hawaiian and crediting those to Alaska? I would assume yes because of their partnership.
It’s not a partnership. Alaska owns Hawaiian.
So does the miles earned on a redemption ticket that count toward EQM also get posted as miles that can be used to book for a future trip ? so if you fly 5,000 miles do those 5,000 miles get posted as 5,000 miles on your Alaska account ?
No. I noted in the post that you do not earn redeemable miles, just EQMs.
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?
I wouldn’t be too concerned about that. I had reached out to Alaska about it this morning before I’d heard that some people were seeing the miles today. I had already scheduled this post before I heard back from them, but then I later received word that the EQMs from partner flights should post next week, so I think the process isn’t complete. I’d give it a week or two before being concerned.
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.