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Regular readers could easily be forgiven for thinking that InsideFlyer UK is actually an elaborate front for Alaska Mileage Plan’s PR department, so I’m (almost) reluctant to share the news that Alaska Miles are now even more valuable!
Miles are obviously only really worth something if you can redeem them for flights you actually want to take, so one of the big frustrations with Alaska Miles from a European point of view recently has been the lack of award space available on Cathay Pacific. 42,500 Alaska Miles to Hong Kong in Business Class is a truly great price, but if you can’t find award space for your travel dates, it doesn’t really matter how cheap the award is in theory.
The news that you can now redeem Alaska Miles on Finnair, is therefore extremely welcome. Finnair offers a perfectly decent Business Class product and the best thing here is that you can now redeem Miles from Europe to the Middle East, India and other parts of Asia rather than just Hong Kong (Alaska’s routing rules on Cathay from Europe are very strict).
The award prices aren’t as good as some of the other Alaska partner options, but are still reasonable compared to most of the other options these days. The following prices are for one way flights:
Europe – Europe
- Economy: 12,500 Miles
- Business Class: 20,000 Miles
Europe – Middle East
- Economy: 22,500 Miles
- Business Class: 40,000 miles
Europe – India
- Economy: 25,000 Miles
- Business Class: 45,000 Miles
Europe – Asia
- Economy: 32,500 Miles
- Business Class: 60,000 Miles
Europe – United States
- Economy: 30,000 Miles
- Business Class: 70,000 Miles
You can search for award space and book online using the Alaska site here, and there are no nasty ‘surcharges’ to worry about.
You can also use the multi-city search function to build in a free stopover, if you fancy a few days (or weeks, or months) in Helsinki:
Bottom line
More options for spending Miles is always a good thing, but particularly so for Alaska Miles, because the European options were relatively limited previously.
Now, if only they could finally get Singapore Airlines award space added next please!
Yaaay two years of waiting finally paid off for us mileage plan members.
Now to wait for both Singapore Airlines and aer Lingus to be added…
A stopover in Hong Kong is maybe a bit more exciting than Helsinki.. but I guess the main benefit here is the greater award availability?
You can’t stopover for free in HKG on a Europe-HKG reward anyhow. (unless you use Avios to continue onwards)
Can I transfer my SPG points to Alaska at the moment or is that a bit of a mess with the SPG transition?
I would steer clear of SPG / Marriott for the rest of August.
I’ll let Joe or somebody blog about merging accounts. I’m going to keep my Platinum accounts safe from harm until the IT is proven.
😉
Thanks for the update Joe. This is a welcome change. I’ll be interested to see what Finnair availability is like. EUR-HKG on CX J availability has all but dried up both far out and close in.