Overnight, Alaska made two substantial changes to its MileagePlan program, resulting in many partner awards pricing significantly higher today than yesterday. I’ll say it bluntly: Alaska Airlines violated our trust once again and should be ashamed of itself.
As always with Alaska Airlines, the sin is not the devaluation itself, but the failure to provide any notice before implementing it.
Devaluation #1: No More Stopovers on Intra-Asia Awards
Stopovers on awards within Asia are no longer permitted on a complimentary basis. This marks the end of one of the greatest values of Alaska miles.
Devaluation #2: Mainland China Re-Classified From Southeast Asia to North Asia
Mainland China was classified as part of Southeast Asia on the Singapore Airlines award chart. Now it is grouped with Korea and Japan in North Asia. In a move sure to make Beijing smile, Hong Kong remains in South Asia.
An Example
So let’s put these together. Yesterday, you could fly from Beijing to Singapore on Singapore Airlines in first class, stay as long as you wanted in Singapore, then return to Hong Kong in Singapore Airlines first class. The cost would be 35K miles, the price of a one-way ticket within the Southeast Asia region.
Now that Mainland China has been re-classified as North Asia and stopovers are no longer permitted, you are looking at 75,000 for the outbound and 35,000 miles for the return! Yes, a trip that cost 35K miles yesterday will now cost 110K miles!
That’s almost as bad as the overnight Emirates devaluation of 2016.
> Read More: Alaska Airlines Blames “Travel Hacking” for Emirates Devaluation
Did The Bloggers Ruin This?
All of the serious points/miles bloggers, myself included, blogged about the introduction of Singapore Airlines as a redemption option on Alaska Airlines. Are we responsible for this sudden change?
I’d strongly push back on such a narrative. It’s too simplistic. First, let’s give Alaska some credit for knowing what it is doing…you really think they had no clue their system was allowing stopovers on one-way awards? Second, we’ve had stopovers on intra-Asia awards for years. Their sudden demise was hastened by the addition of Singapore Airlines, but the idea of intra-region stopovers is nothing new and was widely publicized. I do think bloggers pointed out the sweet spots…and that sweet spots always have a limited shelf life. But there were bigger forces at work.
> Read More: Singapore Award Space Blocking On Alaska Airlines
CONCLUSION
Gilbert Ott of God Save the Points points to the true problem:
[T]his is yet another gut punch, not necessarily because it’s happening, but because it’s been done without any warning, under the cover of darkness. That’s just not ok…
of Travel Codex responded, “I’ll say I don’t think these changes are as bad as Gib suggests.”
I disagree and hope that someone will gently correct me when I start sounding like a United shill. Rather, I think Gib captures precisely the problem with today’s Alaska MileagePlan devaluation.
Alaska just concluded a huge sale on purchased miles. Many took advantage because they expected to make strategic Asian redemptions on Singapore Airlines. Now awards that cost 35K miles cost 110K miles. This represents a bait and switch…and cannot be be dismissed as a small correction to a “bug” that was exploited.
The changes are reasonable…sweet spots are only sweet spots because of their comparative value vis-a-vis other loyalty programs. But not giving us any notice really strikes me as unethical, especially when Alaska promised future notice after the no-notice Emirates devaluation in 2016.
This means that award prices on Cathay Pacific and JAL, both overdue for a devaluation, are not safe.
Then again, maybe Alaska will backtrack slightly as it did when it banned Asian redemptions within 72-hours of travel, then reversed itself a day later.
But I’m not holding my breath…
> Read More: Latest Alaska Devaluation Was Bizarre Overreaction
> Read More: Let’s Give Alaska Airlines Credit for Listening
Get used to it. They overpaid for Virgin America and now have to get that money back…
If you don’t really understand why the devaluation comes…..Don’t post
AS system allows redemption such as
PVG-SIN-LHR-SIN clarify as a one way intra-asia and it was abused so much in 2 days and you can imagine why
Were you one of the brokers that ruined this for everyone?
No one is protesting prohibiting routings via London for intra-Asia routes. That goes without saying–I would never encourage such abuse on my blog.
But a stopover within Asia? Fair game and something that made Alaska stand out among its peers.
Alaska was perfectly justified in rescinding this benefit, but should have given notice while immediately blocking egregious violations like flying between two Asian cities via London or Sydney.
I have no problem with these changes. AS implemented SQ awards without full awareness how their incredibly generous routing rules could be abused by ticket brokers. This is a serious problem in Asia and has caused several programs to implement award ticket restrictions. When you’re dealing with outright fraud, giving notice of necessary changes is not a realistic option.
AS remains probably the fairest and most generous major FFP.
I have no problems with the changes, only the lack of notice.
Alaska has a team well-versed at combating fraud. It could easily take steps to reign in this fraud without immediately eliminating stopovers. That includes a waiting period on new accounts or restricting bookings on Asian awards only to account holders and family members with the same surname.
I appreciate the principle, but just have a hard time getting too worked up about some vested right to stopovers on a one-way intra-Asia award. To me, that falls within the “too good to be true” category.
Kacee man F the FT UA mods! They are becoming shills for the airline. Almost as bad as TPG & Marriott.
*REIN in.
“without full awareness”?
It took them years – yes, years – to make award tickets available after their partnership was announced. They had enough time to figure this out beforehand.
Remember, Scott writes for the Alaska air in-flight magazine and has scored many sponsored trips from Alaska air and partners. He’s of course going to try to dumb it down. No different than The points guy or anyone else with an Amex to chase affiliation. they constantly trying to play down the devaluations. Because they don’t want to hurt their sponsorships
I agree with Kacee. Not sure if you read milelion but you can read some of the crazy SQ routings that apparently worked before this change.
Daniel I am not sure about AS overpaying that’s a long term play. When one acquires another company you don’t go about it “short sighted”
As for betrayed as the author clearly stated “were bloggers” partly to blame I say YES. Point is how many people are truly loyal AS flyers for the record I am a MM with Alaska the hard way before all the newer long haul flights!
There was an old E. F Hutton commercial that essentially said you have to earn it. One nice thing about AS if one calls the partner desk for help booking they look at your account and know who is a real AS flyer and not some hack. Hackers continue to lay waste to these programs. I personally would like to see them all disbanded and use that money to reduce ticket prices and cc rates. See what happens to all the bloggers then. There is an oh so small but growing movement to reduce these programs which I am all for.
people abuses the system by booking
China – SIN – EU/AUS – SIN
with a stopover in EU/AUS and pays Intra-Asia one way rate…. You can imagine what will happens
An easy loophole to close without eliminating stopovers on intra-Asia awards.
Unless of course, their IT doesn’t allow it, which Lucky at OMAAT has hinted at.
Well United really f**ked me in the c*** (pardon my French) but I agree those changes aren’t great. Didn’t AS jack up award charts wo/warning last year too?
This is one of those things where the more you think about it, the angrier you get. So not only are they raising the PQD figure up to 4k/5k for us lowly Silvers, they’ve been “tricking” us into buying up to RE for the last year. It’s no f**king wonder I’ve “earned” 1800 PQD this year! 27.4k PQM so 6.5 cpm plus taxes and fees. But it’s still highway robbery. In the past, I’ve made Silver with as little as 700 PQD (yes, all UA metal). I’ve decided to stop flying altogether. I’m so disgusted.
AS always claims “fraud” to avoid accountability for failing to provide advance notice for devaluations.
People were booking SIN LHR SIN PEK in F for 35k
I understand. That should have been blocked. I am talking about awards within Asia.
Yeah that’s tough. We should be used to the lack of notice by now, unfortunately. And we should also predict that when a “loophole” opens, the closing of it will be an overreaction… to the detriment of more than just those who took advantage of it.
Although it does feel a bit strange to be “punished” for the behavior of others that we cannot control. Seems your lawyering is shining through 🙂
Maybe you should sue them.
Nope.
This isn’t Bonvoyed bad, but killing off the egregious routings immediately and giving notice on stopovers would be sensible.
I am so upset intra Asia stopover is banned over night especially on my beloved Japan airline. A little notice in advanced would be more acceptable. Instead of killing all, why can’t AS just ban those abusers in China and Singapore???
It was a bug anyway. Especially a much more huge bug was discovered related to this.
Im glad they did this. They were getting taken advantage of by a few at the expense of the many (the other flyers, the airline them self). A good deal is one thing and rewarding real loyalty is good but all the games just hurt the average person. At the end of the day they are just a business, and arguably a successfully growing one that still has one of the best programs, so if people dont like it just fly someone else. I suspect only the people who were hacking the system will choose to do that which is a win for people whos time is actually valuable.
Jon Ben don’t forget the bloggers their fingerprints are all over this one.
Soo…. This post is merely justification of wrong estimation given to client(s)? Oh well….
Actually, no Alaska bookings lately at Award Expert and I did not write about the latest purchased miles promo.
Okay
This is all BS…drop all FF programs, points, etc.
Tbh bloggers are infact responsible. If you kept quiet things would have been normal. But nope you had to flap your gums so that the airlines knew you were publisizing the loopholes.
violate trust? Pfft. Alsaka closed a loophole you bloggers (and eventually brokers) proudly exploited with regularity.
Alaska is not UA, AA, Delta. if you want to find mistrust issues, try banging your drum for those 3 legacy US carriers.