Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan: The Ultimate Guide (2024)

In March 2024, Alaska introduced four distance-based award charts—one chart for its own flights and three for its partner airlines, based on region. These charts are a helpful resource to utilize when booking award flights, as they’ll provide you with the minimum number of miles needed for a redemption depending on the distance of your trip.

On Flights With Alaska Airlines

Alaska uses a semi-variable award pricing scheme on its own flights within North America. You’ll pay a different range of points depending on how far you fly.

Award rates vary based on the day of the week and the time of the day. For example, flights from Seattle (SEA) to Salt Lake City (SLC) in Main Cabin can cost as few as 5,000 miles on a Wednesday, but start at 12,500 miles on a Sunday. First-class awards can see a wide range of costs, as well. One day you might find a flight for 15,000 miles, and just a couple hours later the flight could jump to 30,000 miles each way.

On Flights With Partners

Alaska Airlines uses three award charts for partner airlines that are broken down by the following regions:

• The Americas
• Europe, Middle East and Africa
• Asia Pacific

Award Chart for the Americas

This chart includes travel from the U.S to and within the Americas including North America, the Caribbean Islands, Central America and South America.

Award Chart for Europe, the Middle East and Africa

This chart includes travel from the U.S. to and within EMEA, defined as Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Award Chart for Asia Pacific

This chart includes travel from the U.S. to Asia Pacific, within Asia Pacific and between Asia Pacific and Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Asia Pacific includes Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the South Pacific, Japan and Korea.

Fees

Alaska tacks on fees to certain awards. For example, you’ll have to pay $12.50 each way per award for all partner awards. And you’ll need to pay $15 to book an award over the phone—even if the award can’t be booked online.

Thankfully, Alaska’s elimination of change fees also applies to award bookings.

Sweet Spots

Stopover for Free on Awards

One of the best perks of Alaska Mileage Plan awards is the ability to stopover for free on one-way awards.

Alaska Airlines allows stopovers for free on one-way awards. If you want to fly to Hawaii, but stop in Seattle for a few days to visit friends, you can do a “multi-city” booking and include a stopover for no additional miles.

Stopovers can be a little trickier when it involves partners. While Alaska Airlines allows you to do a stopover, some of the airlines have their own rules. Booking Seattle (SEA) to London (LHR) on British Airways means that you can stop over in London before heading off to Paris (CDG), for example.

While there is no written rulebook online, contacting the Alaska Airlines call center and speaking with a representative is the best way to see if a stopover is allowed on your partner itinerary.

Condor

This German Airline is a partner of the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan and allows Mileage Plan members to both earn and redeem miles on flights throughout the Condor network. Condor services many cities in the United States including New York, Seattle, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Los Angeles and more. From their hub in Frankfurt you can connect to vacation destinations throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Using Alaska’s award chart for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, we can see that a flight from New York City (JFK) to Frankfurt (FRA) would cost just 27,500 miles in economy or 55,000 miles in business class.

Air Tahiti Nui

Based out of Papeete in Tahiti, Air Tahiti Nui offers nonstop service to Seattle and Los Angeles from Papeete and connections to other places, including New Zealand.

Often viewed as one of the most challenging places to get to using miles, Alaska Airlines only charges 80,000 miles for flights all the way to Auckland and back and only 60,000 miles for round-trip flights to Tahiti.

Short Flights on Partner Airlines

With the current award charts, short distance flights under 700 miles start at 4,500 Alaska miles one way. That means a flight from Dallas to Denver, that clocks in at under 700 miles, will cost just 4,500 miles if award space is available on a partner airline like American Airlines. That same route operated by Alaska will start at 5,000 miles.

Canceling Mileage Tickets

If you make a booking with your miles and need to cancel your flight, Alaska Airlines will redeposit your miles to your account for no extra cost. Any taxes that came with the ticket will also be refunded.

With that said, it’s important to note that if you paid a phone booking fee or you paid a partner booking fee, those are nonrefundable.

The partner booking fee is a $12.50 charge that Alaska levies on all award tickets that involve a partner. This is a fee that is paid for a new booking in each direction. This means that a round-trip ticket would have a $25 fee.

Note that if the flight changes and requires rebooking you won’t pay an additional fee. Also, if the airline cancels your flight or changes your flight, in such a way that makes you unable to travel, you can request a refund of the partner booking fee by calling Alaska’s customer service.

Quirks

Alaska Mileage Plan awards can’t combine multiple partners. For example, you can’t combine an award on American Airlines to Los Angeles (LAX) with a Fiji Airways award from Los Angeles to Nadi, Fiji (NAN). The one exception is that you can connect within the U.S. on Alaska Airlines.

Infant Fees

If you’re flying as a family, Alaska’s Mileage Plan may leave you frustrated. You can’t add an infant award to a Mileage Plan award. Instead, Alaska leaves it up to passengers to “contact the partner carrier to determine the fee for the infant’s transportation, and to arrange ticketing for the infant.” To avoid having to work with the partner airline, you’d need to book an award seat for your infant at the full mileage rate.

Expiration

Technically, Alaska Mileage Plan miles don’t expire. However, if your Mileage Plan account is inactive for more than two years, Alaska will close your account and you’ll forfeit all of your miles. If this happens to you, all is not lost. You have one year to reinstate your account without a charge. If you do not reactivate your account within a year of account deactivation (three years since the last activity on your account) you will forfeit all miles earned and your account may not be reactivated.

Other Ways To Use Alaska Mileage Plan Miles

Upgrades

Redeem 15,000 miles to upgrade eligible Alaska flights to first class. Just note that you’ll need to book a fare that qualifies for a mileage upgrade. Thankfully, Alaska makes it easy to do so. Just select the “mileage” upgrade option when searching for a flight on Alaska’s website.

Money & Miles

Alaska’s Money & Miles redemption option gives travelers the opportunity to redeem miles for a discount on paid flights. One perk of this option is that you’ll still earn mileage credit even though you’re redeeming miles. However, the redemption rate is on the low side at just 1 cent per mile:

• 10,000 miles for a 50% discount up to $100 off
• 20,000 miles for a 50% discount up to $200 off

Book Hotels

You can redeem Alaska Mileage Plan miles to pay for your hotel at over 400,000 properties worldwide through Alaska’s Rocketmiles-powered hotel search engine.

If you have an Alaska credit card, make sure to log into your account to get a mileage discount on booking hotels. From a quick search, Alaska cardholders get around a 9% discount—but the redemption rate is still abysmal. You’ll get much better value from your Alaska miles when redeeming them for flights.