Today’s sweet spot spotlight is on Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan since they offer a free stopover on one-way award tickets, which can be a great deal when you want to reach two destinations.
Sweet spot spotlight:
- The short story: Alaska Airlines only allows a free stopover on one-way awards (even domestic ones).
- Miles required: Varies, but you’re charged based on the price from point of origin to the final destination. See Alaska Airlines mileage charts here.
- How to find awards: Search alaskaair.com (or on partner sites for some partners)
- How to book awards: Book online at alaskaair.com or call Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan at 1-800-252-7522.
Quick Notes
Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan is an excellent loyalty program that offers great value in terms of premium cabin international awards with top-notch partners. But you can also get fantastic value out of Alaska miles for domestic travel since they do not charge a close-in booking fee and they allow a free stopover on one-way awards.
Today’s sweet spot spotlight focuses on strength #2. A free stopover on a one-way award means that you can enjoy two destinations for the price of one.
For example, Alaska ordinarily charges 12,500 miles for a one-way domestic award ticket within the United states. For example, you could fly from Newark to San Diego in economy class for 12,500 miles.
Or you could fly from Newark (or JFK) to Seattle for 12,500 miles.
However, with a free stopover, you could alternatively fly from Newark to both San Diego and Seattle for the same 12,500 miles + $11.20.
Note that the stopover in San Diego can be for as long as you want — whether you plan to stay in San Diego for a few days or a few months, you can continue your journey from there to another domestic destination for 12,500 miles. That’s a great deal that gives you the chance to see two destinations for the price of one, which can be particularly cool given Alaska’s wide reach on the west coast. It could also be a good deal for those who live in an Alaska hub and can extend their trip home beyond their home airport with a stopover. Note that there are some routing rules and limitations, but it is worthwhile to play with the online booking tool to see what works since it can be pretty surprising.
The same can be said for trips to other parts of the world. For instance, let’s say that you wanted to fly from San Diego to Minneapolis in business class. Ordinarily, that would start at 25,000 miles one-way.
Flights on partner carriers get a little tricky since Alaska publishes separate award charts for each partner (see those award charts here). For instance, you can fly from North America to Europe on Icelandair for 50K miles one-way in business class. Alaska will allow you to mix flights on Alaska Airlines flights with flights on one partner airline on a single itinerary.
Let’s say that you wanted to fly from San Diego to Minneapolis (shown above for 25K) and then continue on to Iceland. You could do that for 50K miles total.
For just 25K miles more than the flight to Minneapolis (plus taxes), that’s not a bad deal. Icelandair’s business class isn’t known to be anything special, but the same concept would also apply with other partners and to other parts of the world. Some partners can be booked online with ease and others may require a phone call, but the possibilities are surprisingly flexible.
The examples in this post only demonstrate some basic examples. See the advanced booking tool here and click “multi-city” if you’re looking to book a trip with stopovers. Trial and error should give you a better idea as to what you can and can not do.
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[…] That said, we don’t often see a payout of 20x from Alaska, which in most instances awards a few less miles per dollar than other portals. Alaska miles can be great for travel to Australia (55K one-way in business class) and/or the Asia-Pacific region (from 50K one-way in business class to Asia or from 60K / 70K in first class). See Alaska’s various partner award charts here. Also keep in mind that Alaska allows a free stopover on one-way awards, which is where the value of miles can really shine. […]
[…] has both a really nicely priced set of award charts and one of the best sweet spots around (See: Free stopovers on one-way awards w/ Alaska [Sweet-spot spotlight]).Earning more miles for the intro bonus on this card is a win in my book, even if Bank of America […]
Would it be possible to use alaska miles to book a free stopover from HNL-SYD-DFW OR DFW-SYD-HNL?
Thank you.
I am having a terrible time finding award space on Alaska. All partner award flights with AA come up with errors or are ghost flights. Also their pricing on partner flights is almost always greater than the host airline’s prices. I even called Alaska and their response is “yeah I see that but is does not work for me either”. So far the worst website I have tried to deal with and I regret wasting my time to collect Alaska points.
Sorry to hear you’re having trouble. AA has had some issues with phantom availability even on AA.com lately (I spent hours yesterday looking to book a last-minute trip on AA today and had one flight after another come up as “not available” when I tried to choose it — and this was booking with AA miles through AA.com, so I don’t think that’s an Alaska issue but rather American’s IT issue). British Airways has also had trouble with phantom AA availability (had the same problem trying to book flights through BA a month or two ago). Frustrating for sure.
As for their pricing on partner flights being higher than the host airline’s prices, Alaska Mileage Plan is widely regarded for great partner pricing for business and first class on airlines like JAL, Cathay Pacific, Qantas, Fiji Airways, etc. One-way first class from New York to South Africa with a free stopover in Hong Kong for 70K miles might be the best deal on miles of any program as one example illustrating this. 55K one-way in business class to Australia with a free stopover in Fiji is another sweet spot. Many of Alaska’s partner airline miles aren’t very practical for US-based fliers to earn (JAL, Fiji Airways, Icelandair, Finnair, Hainan etc), whereas Alaska miles can be earned from signup bonuses, credit card spend, and the Alaska shopping portal, making it a lot easier to amass Alaska miles than, say, JAL miles (though you can earn Emirates, Qantas, or Cathay Pacific Asia Miles through Membership Rewards or Flying Blue miles through many programs. Still, I think you’ll find Alaska’s chart more competitive in most cases for those airlines than their own award charts — and the addition of a free stopover on a one-way award enhances the value proposition since most of those airlines do not offer the same.
Though certainly if you find a better deal elsewhere, it’s always good to compare your options and choose the one that makes the most sense for you.
Can any combination between New York,San Francisco and Ft. Lauderdale or Miami be considered a stop over?
I don’t think so. While backtracking isn’t entirely impossible depending on the situation, you generally can’t fly both West and East on the same airline on a one-way award. You could fly from New York to Los Angeles, stopping over on your way to Anchorage. Or you could fly from New York to Anchorage stopping over on your way to Maui. Or you could maybe fly from San Francisco to Orlando stopping over in Cabo San Lucas v( I haven’t tried that specific combo). but you can’t fly from New York to Anchorage stopping over on your way to get to Chicago. However, when you add in partner, things are a little more flexible. it’s still not going to get you from New York to fort Lauderdale with a stopover in San Francisco though.
[…] Free Stopovers On Alaska Award One Ways: We’ve covered this topic before on Travel Miles 101, but this serves as a great reminder to maximize your hard earned points. This is one of the reasons that makes Alaska miles so valuable. […]
[…] Today’s sweet spot spotlight is on Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan since they offer a free stopover on one-way award tickets, which can be a great deal when you want to reach two destinations. LEARN MORE! […]
Thank You ..I’ll work on this could save me another trip and points too. CHEERs
Any way this use this “sweet spot” can be used for award travel from San Jose (CA) to Japan with stopover in Honolulu?
I am an Alaska Gold member and love to game their wonderful system.
Here’s a trick I use all the time…
LAS to SEA costs as little as 7,500 miles. SEA to LAX also can be as low as 7,500.
However, fly from LAS to SEA (where I happen to live…works for PDX and elsewhere too)…then “stopover” for as long as I want and then fly SEA to LAX. The total miles for both legs is 5,000! Essentially, Alaska will price the route as if it was a LAS to LAX flight and ignores the SEA aspects.
If one happens to be a Gold, you can also change the dates of your continuing flight and use the extra leg almost anytime you wish. Even if the cheapest mileage segment isn’t available on the later flight, you can add miles to make up the difference and still likely be cheaper than 2 one ways.
Tom
Kind Sir I’m looking ..Can u do ORD>GUM( or HNL)>SIN ??? or whats a good layover out that way ??
THANKS
CD
Yup love this feature. Just booked NYC to Hawaii with a stopover in SF for 25k (direct, could have done 17.5k with stops)
Every summer I do Alaskan first class , PHL- PVR- HNL … nothing like a Mexico and Hawaii trip to kick off the summer
Prefect timing of this post… I just booked an Emirates award from DXB to EWR… after reading this called and I added JFK-LAX flight 3 weeks after my trip for free.
How many miles would your itinerary cost? Was JFK-LAX on Alaska or AA? I’m thinking about a similar trip to India.
The tag-on flight (in my case JFK-LAX) has to be on Alaska. it will not increase the cost of your flight India-USA if in the same or lower class of service.
Thanks Nick for this tip! Last summer, I booked a trip from San Diego to Tokyo, Japan for this June in First Class on JAL via Alaska miles. I don’t have a stopover, but this information definitely helps!