As flagged by Loyalty Lobby, Alaska airlines has added a weird restriction on award tickets: according to their terms, you can not change the frequent flyer number associated with your reservation on an award ticket. In other words, if you book a ticket using your Alaska miles for travel on British Airways, you can’t change out your Alaska Airlines frequent flyer number for your American Airlines frequent flyer number in order to use your American Airlines elite status to access a British Airways or other oneworld lounge (for instance). I suspect that this may be tough for Alaska to enforce, but I also wonder whether they may take action against serial offenders who try to skirt this rule.
This restriction is both strange and concerning
Alaska’s updated award chart page now contains the following passage:
When redeeming miles for an award ticket from Alaska Mileage Plan account, customer cannot enter another airline’s frequent flyer number and is thus ineligible for benefits from another program.
This is a strange restriction in the sense that most other loyalty programs don’t prohibit changing the frequent flyer number associated with a reservation. That said, it isn’t always easy to do so. For instance, if you book a United flight through Turkish Miles & Smiles, good luck getting the frequent flyer number changed to anything else — United certainly refuses to do it (that said, when it comes to accessing Star Alliance lounges, you don’t actually need the partner’s frequent flyer number attached to the reservation — you can simply show your Star Alliance Gold status to access a lounge).
With some airlines, this is a matter of pulling up your reservation through some other alliance website to change the frequent flyer number. Or a check-in or lounge agent may be able to help you change your frequent flyer number.
But to my knowledge, this is the first restriction of exactly this kind. One Mile at a Time marvels at why Alaska would do this since Ben reports that his understanding is that the airline with which you have status pays for your lounge access, not the airline that issues your ticket (assuming they are different). Ben wonders why Alaska would care that you switched your frequent flyer number in this case.
I might guess that Ben is right that Alaska doesn’t necessarily care. However, I bet that American Airlines might care if they have to pay Qantas for first class lounge access while you use your Alaska miles to fly on Japan Airlines (which may or may not be a realistic example — my point here is that American probably does care about being on the hook for elite benefits it while you travel an alliance airline using miles from another alliance airline. To be clear, that sort of thing probably happens a lot around the world, but maybe they had the ability to exert some pressure on Alaska as the two work together within the United States.
I’m no expert on inside industry information like that, so this is entirely speculation on my part that may be unfounded. Ben is much more attuned to the inner workings of these loyalty programs, so it may well be that he is right that this just doesn’t make any sense, but I wonder whether the cost (to American Airlines) of easy American Airlines elite status is adding up and American is looking to tighten the ways in which you can leverage those status benefits.
Will other airlines follow suit on this?
My even bigger concern here is whether we’ll see other airlines follow suit with similar policies. That would really stink for those who strategically choose how to pursue elite status. Losing access to alliance-wide benefits while redeeming miles for partner awards could be a sizable hit for a lot of travelers.
I imagine that we wouldn’t see this type of restriction expand beyond award tickets. And I hope that this doesn’t expand beyond Alaska (and that Ben is right that most other airline agents won’t even be aware of Alaska’s policy here). Still, if airlines can get away with this kind of restriction, I could imagine a world in which some other airlines might try to follow Alaska’s lead — and that would be really disappointing. Hopefully this ends up being a nothingburger tucked away in the terms that isn’t particularly enforced.
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Looks like AS has closed off all the avenues to change the number. I tried online chat through the website and no dice. I then tried calling them and again no dice.
Good news. I was able to add / replace my AAdvantage number on an Alaska Mileage Plan award ticket award on American metal. An American rep helped me by calling Alaska, and according to him, I could have accomplished the same thing by calling Alaska directly and asking them to replace my Mileage Plan number with my AAdvantage number.
On a related topic, I think you guys have majorly downplayed what a bloodbath the AS devaluation really is.
I wonder if some of this is that Alaska would like to incentivize people to have Alaska status, not just to buy points/transfer from Bilt and then redeem on partners and use their other OW status.
The anecdotes about BA in other comments make me a little nervous. I hope this doesn’t become OneWorld policy.
I think this is a change we’ll see more of.
I routinely book AA flights using BA Avios after transferring my credit card miles to Avios. The BA award pricing lets me get AA flights at a miles discount on a regular basis.
However, I’ve noticed lately that it’s harder to book an AA flight via BA, and that my AA number no longer seems to append to my reservation when I do book a flight. As a result, I don’t enjoy AA status benefits unless I get my AA number added, which I can do by contacting AA support.
I suspect what’s happening is the airlines are realizing they’re giving out award flights at 20% discounts when booked through partner airlines and they’re looking for ways to battle that. “Wanna book with Avios? Sure, go ahead. They’re still a partner airline. But you don’t get a discount.”
Not only do discounted award bookings via partner airlines erode margins, they also also impede airlines’ strategy (AA especially) of shifting from air travel companies to financial services companies, all built around partnerships they form using miles as currency.
My money says we’ll see more changes like this over the next 1-2 years.
I have an AS award on Condor J with mixed cabin AS econ… nothing works
What do you mean by “nothing works”? What are you trying to do?
Managing it on AY website doesn’t work. I can’t access it. Given the primary flight is not even OW operated, I’m not surprised. And based on this article, AS and AA certainly won’t help… So…
Wonder how much this was driven by Finnair cost cutting. (Substitute Finnair into your AA example and similar situations)
Pro Tip: Add yourself as a “Travel Companion” on your Alaska Air account…using your other FF info (such as putting you with your AAdvantage number in). Then, when booking an award for yourself simply choose your “companion” persona. Did this last month on a CX award booked via Alaska and it worked perfectly, had all my OWE benefits automatically associated with the ticket.
It seems they patched that loophole. I can’t add myself as companion. The only thing that can be changed is phone number. And using a different phone number didn’t help.
You bell ends need to stop complaining , next one i see complaining might find themselves sitting on a plane where the door flies off, know what I’m saying ?
United doesn’t refuse to change the FF# on a Turkish-booked award ticket on UA metal. I do this at least once a year on the phone with the 1K agents.
Well lucky you! I’ve tried multiple times to no avail and have heard the same from others. I don’t have 1K status though.
Can confirm I’ve never had any issue getting United chat support or twitter to switch the frequent flier number, either. Interesting to hear this differers between agents…hope I keep getting the “nice” ones.
I’ve actually had this issue when I have called AA trying to get ma AA number added to an award using BA miles to fly AA (where I’m platinum). The agents typically won’t let you do it so you have to try to find your AA confirm number via Finnair. I’m guessing this is all being driven by AA.
I’ve had no problem adding my AA number to an AA flight made through a BA award booking. BA will provide an E-ticket number through an email which you can then use in AA app to locate the AA record locator. Once you have the AA record locator, you simply call AA and have the agent add your AAdvantage #. Hopefully this process will still work with AA flights booked through Alaska awards.
AA makes a ton of money off of people chasing Loyalty Points / tier status. If alliance-wide benefits such as lounge access on award tickets cease, I can see a ton of people not chasing AA tier status . . . and AA losing a primary source of net income.
I just discovered this this week. Saturday flying J to the UK on BA on an AQ award. BA actually wants $240 per seat to select a seat in advance, but I have AA gold which would make it free 7 days in advance. Not possible to change FF number so stuck with no seat selection until check-in.
Hmmm
You cannot add the FF number on ba.com? Usually you can. If there’s one there already, what if you ask BA to remove it? Then you can try again on ba.com.
Not any more. Not possible on ba.com and not possible an Alaskaair site either. Can’t change it in either carriers app either.
Use the Finnair website’s Manage Booking option to change your FF number to AA. It works.
This is not unusual. American Airlines has the same policy.
https://viewfromthewing.com/unpacking-alaska-airlines-controversial-new-rule-on-award-travel-and-frequent-flyer-benefits/
Not sure if anyone is still reading this thread. But I booked an award ticket using Alaska miles. I simply specify that I was booking for someone else and then I left FF account blank. So when you check in on the partner airline website, you’ll have the option to add an FF number.