Alaska Airlines flights to Europe

Who knows? We fly them a lot domestically and they’re in the process of changing everything to “Atmos.” Not a fan of their new website or that every time I try to pull up my boarding pass lately on their app I have to be redirected to their website, thank goodness for Apple Wallet.

They said they would be putting on sale the new routes to Rome and London "this fall". Technically, "Fall" runs until December 21st, so they've still got 7-8 weeks left to keep to their PR schedule. Just a guess, but I would expect things to roll out in the next few weeks, before the major Holiday travel demand spikes around Thanksgiving.

There's no way to predict what fares will be like on their European flights until they push out the flight inventory. Sometimes there are some discounted tickets as part of an initial rollout on new routes, with discounts intended to help generate buzz. Though I suspect nonstops from Seattle to Rome are going to be in high demand (even in the "off" season) so any discounted fares may be few and far between. We will see.

If you are thinking of using frequent flier miles, then I would wait and see the what the flight is offered at. BA is usually expensive with their fees. Fares may be comparable with cash….

Alaska will have the advantage of being a nonstop to Rome.

Alaska has leased a slot pair at Heathrow from American effective 22nd May 2026, which will allow one daily flight to / from Seattle. Not yet available for purchase.

Alaska will be flying to Iceland as well, seasonally. A week or so ago, I booked tickets for August with Alaska points and it was actually fewer points that it took 2 years ago. At that time we booked through Alaska since they are partners with Iceland Air, and that trip was 70k points. This trip was 62.5k points. I fully expected the points cost to be higher, but needless to say we were thrilled!

Rome to Seattle in May, 30,000 miles.

Carol--Right now, Alaska is showing the lowest mileage for that route to be 65k round trip. From Seattle r/t the lowest miles are 70k. I hope you booked that 30k deal!

Liz, I did book the 30,000 mile deal. Looking forward to the non-stop.

I just checked first few days in May and the lowest I found was 77.5k miles round trip. To pay cash it was $2,041 nonstop in economy…whoa! Obviously, Alaska’s deals didn’t last long …..

margie--Yes, they sure did go fast!

Good deals on flights typically get snapped up very, very quickly. It's unusual for any great opportunity to linger for very long, so you snooze...you know what comes after that.

Demand is sky-high. With the internet, and scripts constantly scraping every website in the world (triggering automated alerts), with people standing by peering at their always-on phones, ready to jump on anything that looks good at literally a moment's notice, it's a tough game to play.

About a month ago, I woke up early one Sunday morning, rubbed the sleep from my eyes at an early hour, just for grins looked at some flight options, and to my amazement I found stunningly cheap business class availability for a great route to/from Europe on my favorite airline, many seats available across many days. I was so shocked, I almost spewed coffee on the computer. I woke up my spouse, excitedly told her (she rolled over and muttered, "whatever"). I ran back to the computer and clicked to book a perfect flight for next year's trip. But the availability had vanished - at least on the Friday I had wanted to fly on. I checked other days - it was still available on Thursday. I booked it. An hour later I checked again, and every day that had been available previously was gone. Somebody (or some script) had probably noticed and sent out an alert, and many people jumped on it. I was lucky to get in on it when I did, even though it required us to come home a day earlier than I had wanted.

My point being: There are no secrets anymore. It's an arms race out there, and a very competitive landscape. If one hesitates, one often gets beat in the race.

Congrats to those who successfully booked first and asked questions later (assuming you can cancel if you have regrets).