Advice on booking a flight to Europe with Alaska Air Miles?

The added fees I've seen when I try to book a mileage flight with Alaska is for flying into London on British Airways - they're taxes for flying into London.

Can you try to price flights into Paris? Those taxes are cheaper.

When you buy your tickets with money, those taxes are rolled in so you don't see how high they are.

That is great info, thanks!

The fees added to any mileage/points on any of the airlines to fly into London is astronomical. We have lots of Alaska miles, but just haven't found it useful for flying to Europe. I'm very specific about my flights when I go internationally. I'm not willing to take some circuitous route with miles. It's like going to the casino. The casino always has the upper hand. But you could search other European destinations to see what you find.

Check using them on Icelandair

Yep, last time I checked it was almost $700:for a roundtrip in Economy using Alaska miles on BA.

British Airways always adds their own supplemental fees to their award seat privacies, whether you book with Alaska miles or BA Avios. It is not all “taxes”, and other airlines do not charge nearly as much. It is not worth it if you want to book in Economy. It might be worth it it you want to fly Premium Economy. Or Business Class, but those award seats are probably already gone for next spring.

If you want to use your Alaska miles to Europe, it is best to book an itinerary that uses different destination cities and does not include London at all. Then you will see Iceland Air, Condor, maybe Iberia or FinnAir. And American on some routes. Keep trying different dates for Roundtrip Paris and maybe something will pop up.

“ Check using them on Icelandair”.

Yes you can use them on Icelandair but you cannot use the AS miles to book in the Icelandair website. You have to find the flights on the Alaska website. If you know the Airports that Icelandair uses in the USA and Europe, you could start your search with those and then call Alaska to see if they can get you to that US airport on Alaska.

We use our Alaska miles to book business class flights on British Air. Yes, they add a lot of fees, but it's still cheaper than buying business class outright. You have to be really strategic to get the very few business class seats available for nonstops, because they go within a day or two of posting. I start to stalk the flight I want over a year out, and figure out the exact day I need to buy it (generally 364 days out.) Then I get up early and pounce. I also check alternate airports to fly from. We generally fly to Europe from Seatac, but recently got a great bargain flying from Boston - saved a lot even after paying for a hotel stay the night before. (And then you can use your points to cover the entire ticket to the East coast.)

BA releases 2 business class award seats on each flight when the flights are posted, 355 days ahead, but those are not available to Alaska Airlines mileage partners until a month later (roughly 330:days out). By then, the award seats will have been taken by BA Avios customers., at least in high season. Sometimes they are booked and then canceled and returned to inventory later, so then they are available to Alaska mileage plan members. But still only starting around 330 days ahead.

Right now, the latest date open for booking with miles on the Alaska website is May 4 2025. There are still a few BA Business class seats available, using Alaska to JFK (main cabin) and Business Class on BA from JFK to London. The cost is 70K miles plus $996 each way.

Like KC, we are willing to pay that to fly business class—-it amounts to getting roundtrip business class for the cost of Economy (plus lots of miles). It does take some luck to find them on the AS website, but if you want to fly November through March it is often possible, especially if you are flexible on dates.

I will add that if you are interested in flying British Airways in business class, and have enough Alaska miles (around 280-300K for 2 people), let me know your home airport and your date range next spring, and I can search for available award seats on the BA website. It is much easier to than using Alaska to search. I was able to book a roundtrip to London from Seattle in April-May just a few weeks ago, so maybe there are still some award seats left. If this option appeals but sounds too expensive, consider flying over in business class and back in Premium Exonomy. It is a daytime flight so the lie-flat seats are not as important.

Thanks so much for the advice and the offer. We only have 207k so we most likely will go round trip to Paris unless I can find another way around.

Definitely look at Icelandair as mentioned. I booked my husband for a flight from SEA to KEF for July and August and it was only 70k miles. This was on a whim too, as I had not been looking and it was about 6 months out. I personally love flying Icelandair over Delta etc so for us we were very happy.

Here is the map of cities served by Icelandair in the US and Europe. Paris is one of them, so you should be able to find flights from one of the US hubs with your Alaska miles. You can take the Eurostar train to London and back—-it is a fast ride, and not too expensive if you pay your tickets well in advance.

I just checked SEA to Paris in early April, and there are lots of options on Icelandair (27.5K each way) and some on American (35K each way).

You could even fly non-stop on Air Tahiti Nui on certain days (Wednesday April 2 for example). That is 50K each way in economy, plus $19. You have enough miles for that, and it might be nice to take that direct flight. Plus fun to fly Air Tahiti.

A nice thing about Alaska is that you can book one way at a time, so you could choose that Air Tahiti flight going over and save miles by using one of the other airlines on the return flight. You could even return from London, instead of taking the train back to Paris for your flight. I see Icelandair flights as well as BA from LHR to SEA in mid April.

I just chose SEA as the airport thinking that might be correct since you have so many Alaska miles. If you start from a different airport, your search results will be different, but it should still work out.

Looks like that Air Tahiti flight departs Seattle on Wednesday and Saturday.

We decided to get more ambitious and stick with Paris & France and not see London (next time). So we were able to get two roundtrip flights (with Premium seat upgrades) for 180K miles and $292.00 on fees. I think that's pretty good, but it's my first time booking an international partner flight with miles. Thanks for all the advice, it really helped guide our path.

We flew on Condor for 50k miles + $100 each RT from central Oregon to FRA (via SEA) last year late Nov/early December and did a fabulous Christmas markets trip. Great deal. Economy, but they were offering upgrades to Premium Economy for $200. We had bulkhead economy seats so we didn’t upgrade.

As mentioned, the ridiculous fees are associated with London.