Alaska Airlines has gone from being one of my favorite loyalty programs to one of my least favorite. The botched Starlux launch demonstrates once again that you should exercise extreme caution before trusting Alaska Airlines.
Alaska Airlines Botches Starlux Award Launch
When Alaska Airlines rolled out its new partnership with Taiwan-based StarLux Airlines, it teased promotional pricing on award travel between Los Angles and Tapei through August 31, 2023 at a rate of 60,000 miles in business class and 20,000 in economy. But as noted on Frequent Miler, that space evaporated in less than 24 hours. There still remains plenty of award space, but it is now priced much higher (at 165,000 miles for business class or 45,000 for economy class).
Apparently, Alaska was allocated eight seats per flight at the “introductory” prices and that sold out within 24 hours (that is the unconfirmed rumor). Could Alaska not have easily predicted this? Could Alaska not have simply stated from the outset that only eight seats per flight were available at special pricing instead of suggesting this pricing would last though the month of August?
And from the very start (and this continues now) there were extreme irregularities in the rollout of space. For example, say you wanted to fly from Los Angeles to Hanoi. That returned a price of 130,000 miles from the start in business class, but if you booked LA to Tapei the price was 60,000 miles and Tapei to Hanoi was 15,000 miles. Furthermore, domestic Alaska flights with saver availability could not be added without more than doubling the price of the award (and this continues today at significantly higher price points).
I don’t have any Alaska Airlines miles right now so I was not party to this game. While that is a shame to the extent that 60,000 miles for a one-way business class award on StarLux would have been a great deal and a great review for Live And Let’s Fly, Alaska Airlines once again validated why I am skeptical to bank a lot of miles in that program.
Alaska has many theoretical sweet spots, but seems to have access to only a subset of space on JAL and Cathay Pacific and has repeatedly raised rates without notice (going back as far as its Emirates devaluation several years ago) despite assurances from program leaders it would not devalue without notice. That shows disdain for its members.
Hoarding behavior also prevailed. The comments on Frequent Miler are quite interesting, where we hear that many MVP Golds booked 10+ tickets prospectively. It’s one thing to book a backup plan, but quite another to book 10 tickets when you plan to use only one, but are not sure what date. That sort of selfishness really undermines the spirit of collegiality that once ruled the game of miles and points.
Whatever…
I don’t have a horse in this race except to say the rollout of Starlux award bookings was a colossal failure.
As always with Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, caveat emptor.
image: Starlux Airlines
That reminds me, I have to cancel my Alaska Visa credit card before the end of the year. Not worth the $100 annual fee for me..
The idea that the miles game is played by gentlemen is completely absurd. Since the credit card invasion and the myriad of blogs it has been ruined for those of us that actually fly a few hundred thousand miles a year. And it’s only going to get worse.
Airlines: Credit Card Companies that fly people on the side.
You are correct. The points and miles game from Credit Card Nazis has created this. The airlines have fed the beast and true flyers who actually build long term loyalty get hosed. Also lesson to everyone, when you see a 60K LAX-TPE and it jumps to 135K SEA-LAX-TPE, use common sense and book the 60K LAX-TPE and then buy a one way ticket for $139 from SEA-LAX. Act first figure it out after
Vehemently disagree with you on Alaska Mileage Plan. In the last 60 days Ive redeemed AS miles for 4 Starlux 60K biz, 2 Japan SF)-HND 60k biz, 2 Aer Lingus 60K biz DUB-ORD, 2 Fiji MEL-NAN-SFO 55k biz, 2 El Al TLV-JFK 85K, all near ZERO TAXES and countless BA Business and First for 60K-85K with only $299 in taxes by doing strategic connecting LHR. Alaska Mileage Plan is still the best value out there if you know how to use it. The fact that all of the 8 seats on EVERY Starlux flight were booked in less than 24 hours should surprise NO ONE especially when all the travel bloggers went crazy posting. Elites, and ticket brokers bought up everything.
Interesting comment. I don’t live in the USA anymore so there’s leas use for me of alaska miles but I do think there are some juicy options available as you say.
All you’re missing is a qf biz or f redemption. 55 or 70k to the USA right?
QF is 55k biz (low taxes) and 70k F (when you can find it. Its hard. People want to only look to and from their home city when booking awards. THE LESSON TO ALL IS USE POSITIONING FLIGHTS to get where the lowest redemption originates and ends. It has saved me millions of points/miles and tens of thousands of dollars over the last decade.
No doubt! I have flights from syd to dfw next week on Qantas booked on aa points. Then tacked on dfw rdu flights to see friends. Always start with the big flight. Saying that if you are flying aa metal on aa points you need to search the whole trip usually to save points. Syd lax 450k points. Syd -lax-Phx 78k points
I just tried to find a business class flight to Vietnam from Portland Oregon. The Starlux option I was presented with was 350K one way… How stupid
Agreed.
I’d love to know how all this went down – I suspect Starlux freaked out when all of a sudden hundreds of booking came through.
Looks like autocorrect got you here : “And from the very start (and this continues now) there were extreme regularizes in the rollout of space.”
And Matt, the comments about MVP Golds booking 10 tickets was people booking 2 Round Trips for 4 people, or 5 round trips for 2 people, not one person buying 10 flights planning to use one. Im the one who made the comment and have the data points from friends, No one I know of any of my other MVP G100K friends acted as you would say selfishly booking 10 flights for only 1 planned flight. If your comment in your article was based on my comment in Frequent Miler, you may want to remove that from your article. More than happy to talk to you offline about this. (I have over 250K EQM each year on AS)
Main value to me are the various partner awards. Writing was on the wall a couple years back that this loyalty program was going to be nerfed. Thankfully I stop accumulating points back then. I’m finding it harder to find worthwhile redemptions. If anything I find AA redemptions a better value. 40k AA miles vs 70k AS miles for the same flight from AMM to DOH on QR, among many other instances.
102k miles to go then bye bye AS.
Alaska did mess up by not doing one simple thing. Their announcement should have said 8 seats are available in business at 60K for EVERY LAX-TPE and TPE-LAX from this date to this date, and when those 8 are bought it will default to standard pricing (If 135K its a horrible normal redemption). That was where AS messed up. With how many people are spending money on travel instead of things now, it should be no surprise to anyone that 8 seats were bought on every flight on every day in 24 hours worldwide. When else can you get a family of 6 on the same flight all in biz at the same time. Only when a partner releases ALL inventory for 1 year at once and makes 8 seats available. This was a gift, and many people who acted quickly are extremely satisfied with the Starlux launch. Tell me one other airline that in 10 seconds made 8 BIZ seats available on a route every day for 1 year. NEVER
lol, you’d be happy in a dumpster fire as long as you find that one uneaten donut.
I found 4 uneaten donuts (60k biz seats)
Don’t agree with you concerning Alaska’s mileage program. I prefer it to AA, Delta and Jet Blue’s. Just sayin’
BB
Hilarious: the notion that Alaska somehow “botched” this.
You only say they “botched” it because YOU didn’t get in on it. The tickets were simply snatched up immediately because of you – you and all the other greedy bloggers that have ruined all loyalty programs. You – yes you – and all the other blogs created the feeding frenzy that now exists for everything. You happened to miss out on this opportunity because you were busy for a few hours while the locust swarm strip-mined it. Welcome to the club – this is what everyone experiences now, thanks to the blogs. Want someone to blame? Go look in the mirror.
The hypocracy is breathtaking.
Like I said, I don’t collect Alaska miles and didn’t write about this earlier, so spare me your self-righteousness. There was no missed opportunity on my part.
You may not have written about it, but nearly EVERY OTHER BLOGGER did. OK, you don’t collect AS miles and display ignorance about its program. Do you know how many mileage tickets were issued? Of course you don’t. So how do you know Alaska “botched” the debut? Those who acted quickly probably don’t feel it was botched. Do you think Starlux has availability comparable to…United? Get real. It’s flying to a handful of US cities, maybe/not even one daily flight? How are you surprised that the frenzy fed by bloggers in the name of credit card commissions did not gobble up all available seats in a few days?
If you read the FM piece and based on my own observation, this was not a matter of the space drying up in 24 hours. At some point, either or Alaska or Starlux decided the pace of redemption was too high and shut it down, which makes their execution even worse. While space was gradually going from 60k to 135k as promo seats got booked, there was still some availability the next day, and then suddenly ALL redemptions went to 135k. With the frenzied overbooking, I also assume some cancellations would be taking place, yet nothing is going back in inventory at the promo level.
The 60k promo did not “run out”, Alaska/Starlux pulled it, and there should be some transparency about what happened and what to expect when SFO-TPE opens up, but doubt that will happen.
“Could Alaska not have simply stated from the outset that only eight seats per flight were available at special pricing instead of suggesting this pricing would last though the month of August?”
While I disagree with your characterization of the rollout as botched, this to me is where AS failed. They can and should have been more transparent about capacity controls.. Though if we’re being honest, there’s exactly zero people who take advantage of these kinds of deals who didn’t predict the seats would sell out in a matter of hours. I’m sure many were at their keyboards at 12:01 am ready to book.
Let’s face it, the dynamics of FF program sweet spots have changed. The days of FF programs rewarding last-minute travelers with amazing redemptions are long gone. The calculus has shifted to those who are willing to plan a year in advance and grab space when the schedule opens, and/or can act fast when a flash sale takes place (witness the brief floodgates of EY F space that opened up last week). I plan my travel way in advance, so I’m still able to get good value out of these programs. Even Mileage Plan, which yielded 3 J tickets at 60k each back from Tahiti this summer. You clearly prefer the last-minute deals, where partner deals have largely dried up.
@Matthew – I think you may have hit the nail on the head when you brought up people making huge multiples of reservations that ate up the award availability. Ironically, several BA bloggers are not ashamed to admit that they book award space even when they know they won’t be using the space. That leaves us normal humans out in the cold. That leaves a bad taste in my mouth about how travel bloggers hose their readers to have more choices they can cancel last minute.
What does “extreme regularizes” mean?
Simply…I love Alaska Airlines for so many reasons. I do take international flights but am more of a domestic traveler from Portland where they have an abundance of flights and their customer service is unparalleled. I get that your point is about international trips, but maybe fly them domestically and earn some miles and you will love them as well.
Don’t ever trust Alaska Airlines or there Boeing 737 Death Max Jets
So youre not flying UA, DL or anyone else with MAXs? Grow up and read the crash reports before making a fool of yourself in public.
“Alaska Airlines once again validated why I am skeptical to bank a lot of miles in that program.” – if you learned anything from this supposedly “botched” launch, it’s that you probably SHOULD be banking miles in a program that teased promotional pricing on what would obviously be a high-demand route, so you could have a shot at securing tickets. Those who diligently bank with Alaska were rewarded handsomely. This post screams bitterness and jealousy.
Nope. Disagree.
Yes Alaska has absurd award increases, but it has good partner sweet spots and no minimum spend.
You can get the Starlux awards (I know a couple real people that snagged those awards, not randos on the Internet). Yes they’re scarce, but that’s better than none on other mileage programs.