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Update 3/11/24: Alaska’s new award charts are starting to go live today and will be completely implemented by 3/31/24. This week, new award pricing between the United States and Africa/Europe will begin, with the remaining regions coming onboard during the last half of March. (h/t: OMAAT)
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Alaska Mileage Plan has announced new award pricing starting March 2024. Previously they’ve offered separate award charts for different partners. Now they’ll have a single set of distance-based award charts that apply to all partners. Alaska’s new approach closely mimics Air Canada Aeroplan. Just like Aeroplan, Alaska will have different distance based award charts for different zones of travel. The big picture here is that Alaska’s best sweet-spot award pricing will be tanked, but most award pricing will remain competitive and many new sweet-spots will become available.
Distance Based Award Charts
Alaska will offer four different distance-based award charts, as follows…
Alaska Award Chart
This chart is used for all awards flown entirely by Alaska Airlines (i.e. no partner flights are included).
Americas
This chart is used for flights wholly within the Americas including Central, North, and South America, and Caribbean Islands. One exception: when all segments are flown by Alaska Airlines itself, the Alaska Award Chart (above) will apply. 
Europe, Middle East, Africa
This chart is used for all flights within Europe, Middle East, and Africa; and it includes all flights between the United States, Europe, Middle East, and Africa.
Asia Pacific
This chart includes travel from US to Asia Pacific, within Asia Pacific and between Asia Pacific–Europe, Middle East, Africa. Asia Pacific includes SE Asia, Indian Subcontinent, South Pacific, Japan/Korea
Additional Information
Positive News
- Free stopovers continue: Alaska Mileage Plan will continue to offer a free stopover on one-way international awards. There is no news yet on whether awards flying Alaska itself will continue to offer free stopovers, but I think that is likely.
- Free changes and cancellations continue: Just like today, all awards will be freely cancelable (except for the nonrefundable $12.50 partner booking fee) and freely changeable.
- Very cheap short distance pricing: On many short-distance routes Alaska will offer the cheapest award pricing. For example, it will be possible to book American Airlines from Miami to Grand Cayman for only 4,500 miles.
- Cheap Premium Economy: Premium Economy awards will cost only 30% more than economy (and the economy award pricing is very good, by the way). Further, according to One Mile at a Time, Alaska will price Icelandair business class as Premium Economy since they don’t really offer a true business class product.
- “Starting At” Pricing: We’ve complained before that Alaska’s award charts list prices “starting at” and so it’s impossible to know what the price will really be. The good news here is that the “starting at” prices are now intended to be the exact price when saver awards are available.
- Expanded Partner award space: In some cases Alaska will have access to partner award space beyond what is available as saver award space. In those cases, and with their own flights, when saver space isn’t available you may still be able to book awards but at a price higher than the “starting at” price.
- Quarterly partner award sales: View from the Wing reports: “Mileage Plan is promising that starting next year they will offer regular quarterly award sales on partner redemptions ‘featuring special pricing of up to 50% off specific partners, routes or destinations’ which will also provide outsized value.”
- Korean Air one-way awards: Currently Alaska charges the round-trip travel prices on Korean Air awards when flying one-way, but one-way starting in March 2024, one-way awards will price as one-way awards.
Mixed News
- Cumulative distance award pricing: Unlike how British Airways prices each segment of an award separately, it looks like Alaska will price awards based on the total distance flown. In most cases, that’s better than BA’s approach, but not as good as programs that price based on end to end distance.
- Mixed partner awards: The ability to book awards with multiple partner airlines is coming, but not right away. It is expected “later in 2024”.
Negative News
- Zone based award pricing will be gone: Dirt cheap long-distance awards, like Qantas first class between Australia and the US for 70,000 miles, will be a thing of the past.
- Partner booking fee lives on: Alaska will continue to charge $12.50 per person each way for awards that include partners.
- Mixed cabin awards price based on highest class of service: If you book an award with one leg in economy and another in business class, the entire award will be based on the business class price.
- No international Lap Infants: The terms state “Lap infants are not permitted on international partner awards and will not be accepted for travel. Members will need to book seats at prevailing rates. For travel wholly within the US, or wholly on Alaska Airlines, standard lap infant policies apply.”
My Take
There’s no question that it’s a shame to lose Alaska’s best sweet-spot awards, but we knew that was coming sooner or later, and we expected much worse. If we ignore the old sweet-spots and simply evaluate the new award pricing compared to other programs, we see that the new program is good. It’s not great, but good. For example, I compared new award pricing in some regions to Air Canada Aeroplan pricing (because the two programs will now be very similar) and found that award pricing was very similar. Compared to Aeroplan (for the regions I compared), Alaska will almost always be cheaper for economy awards, business class awards will often be about the same in either program, and first class awards will sometimes be cheaper with one program or the other depending on the situation.
I’ll do more analysis in the future, but for now my reaction is relief. My Alaska miles will still be valuable in the future, but for different types of awards than today. On the other hand, this change puts a spotlight on American Airlines. AA has maintained their excellent (especially for business class) partner award pricing. With Alaska’s changes, AA becomes the last major OneWorld carrier to keep zone based award pricing. I’m really worried that the writing is on the AA wall…
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The key to partner awards is the “little” part that says “If you book an award with one leg in economy and another in business class, the entire award will be based on the business class price.” Historically those partner searches included the little seats of death that meant you got “first” from STL-SEA and then economy to the ends of the earth for the higher price. Hopefully that will change??
No way that will change. Anything net positive to the consumer is either unintentional or non-existent
I’m not finding anything cheaper than it was. Many things more expensive. Seems like “starting at” doesn’t imply price reductions across partners that were previously higher. Those stayed what they were.
E.g. Europe to west coast
Condor 55k–>70k-375k.
AerLingus 280k–>280K
British 85k–>85k (plus a bajillion dollars in fees)
Alaska is currently my #5 program, the main drawback being the inability to book more than one partner on the same itinerary. I can only fly American (or Alaska itself if I want to travel by way of Seattle) out of my airport, but then it usually takes a connection on another carrier to get to my final destination for international flights. I’m still eager to see the mixed partner awards that just about any other program can handle.
Supposedly that’s happening this year…
We’ll see.
That is bad. Definitely a devaluation.
Flight from OKA/SFO to FRA with Condor as leg from SEA to FRA you have plenty availability for 25,000 miles. With the new award chart, that will be 35,000 miles.
In my book it’s only really a devaluation if that was the best way to book (of all the reasonably Acquirable currencys) and its only a sweet spot if there is no better way to book .
I think the new award pricing model no longer excuses their lack of transfers from any of the banks. Why deal with the headache of earning Alaska miles when you can get similar pricing with Aeroplan?
On One World partners? Expand your consideration.
A craftsman will tell you: the right tool for the right job. But, for so many: if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you want to tighten a pipe fitting, you use a wrench. You don’t complain that your screwdriver doesn’t work so well.
If you want to go to X, you use the right tool (points currency) to do that job. And, if that’s a wrench, fine. But, you don’t get rid of your screwdriver. Because there will be a different job that is best done with a screwdriver.
So, you don’t complain that your Alaska points don’t work so well going to Hawaii or wherever. Instead, you ask: where do Alaska points excel? And, at first blush, I see a whole range of applications for Alaska points under the new system. If my little pea brain can figure this out, all of you learned gamesters can as well.
“Starting At” Pricing: We’ve complained before that Alaska’s award charts list prices “starting at” and so it’s impossible to know what the price will really be.
This has been their failing. You can’t really build a miles budget for anything.
Just pulled award pricing for a flight from west coast to Hawaii and it’s showing 40k-60k main & 95k-125k first. Peak times for sure, but the “starting at” 15k & 40k in the chart wouldn’t really mean much.
You need to find saver availability for the starting at price, as with every other program.
Don’t quit. Adapt.
Glad I booked Buenos Aires prior to this…
You may have expected worse but for Asia I expected a whole lot better. 130,000 miles for JFK-TYO-SIN? One way in business? And that’s an absolute best case.
The Europe, Middle East and Africa and Asia Pacific charts include travel from the US to each of those zones, but what about travel from Canada, Mexico, or Central/South America?
I wonder that too. Alaska’s website doesn’t say
Do you have a contact at Alaska to ask why?
Sadly no
That brings up a question – what about Easter Island? My guess is that it would be placed in the Asia Pacific region due to its location.
That’s a great question, I’m wondering how Alaska will handle it. Currently, LATAM doesn’t allow AS to book Easter Island as a one-way from the US. Instead, you have to book two separate awards…one to Chile and then another to Easter Island. However, with the individual award charts going away, I’m curious if that will still be the case, or if you can book it as one, unified award. My assumption is that you will be able to, and it will be governed by the Americas char (but that’s just an assumption).
Always check the Chilean version of LATAM’s site (using Google Translate), to see what the “locals” price is for Santiago to Rapa Nui. I did that due to a lack of award availability and paid roughly 40% less than the non-local site. Saw the Silver Fox (AC) exiting the airport on my flight back mainland too, fun times!
Time to cancel Alaska credit cards and move on. I can transfer UR and MR to Aeroplan instead.
Might have missed but when will this go into effect?
March 2024