Alaska Air Partners to Europe

In my experience with using Delta FF miles, the website typically will only show Delta flights and maybe some key code share partners. When I call the 800# they seem to be able to see other options with other code share partners that are not viewable on the website. Also, the partners will release their seats at different times than the main airline (in my case Delta). So there have been times where Delta had seats but KLM had not released their seats yet so I had to wait for KLM. It is all a bit complicated, but if you are patient and persistent you will eventually find a flight that works for you. Good luck!!

Calling will usually give you more options on more partner airlines. There is usually a fee for calling vs booking online, but if you don't see what you want online, it's worth it. Another tip I've read on other forums: if you call and get an unhelpful agent, hang and call again. You'll get a different agent. While some are bad, many are quite helpful and will work with you to get you the flights you want.

Delta, American, and British Air flights are all shown on the Alaska website if you check the " use miles" box. The website will display lots of choices and you can book one way if you like ( although this doesn't work well with Delta as they charge full miles, not half, for a one-way booking). That way you can book each leg 330 days in advance and have a wide range of choices. I have made a few " dummy bookings" using the website to see how it works, and most offered business or first class on both legs of the journey. But I wouldn't really mind if the short European segment was not. I like having all the options ( different dates, different flight combinations) in front of me before I choose. I don't think an agent would have the patience to tell you all the possible options. The last time I booked using an Alaska Airlines partner desk agent ( 2010), she got annoyed when I asked her to check a few different date combinations.

In 2012 we used Alaska Air miles to go to Europe. Knowing it would involve one of their partner airlines and reading that if we wanted to use one of their partners we called the phone number listed. I began calling at 330 days before hoped for departure and found nothing available for several months. Not willing to give up, I continued to call every week until about 2 months before hoped for departure, I was connected to a male voice who, after listing to my story about weekly calling, said he would see what he could do. After being on hold for what seemed like "forever" he came back on the line and said that he had found a routing using Alaska to Texas and then Delta from Texas to Europe. He asked if I was interested and I said
"heck yes". Trip went along without any problems and we were even offered an upgrade in Texas to an "Economy Extra" section which we jumped at and the wife and I ended up having a row of 4 seats for the 2 of us. This has been our only trip to Europe using miles but we will be trying it again. During all the time I was calling for seat availability, I never felt rushed or short-timed, where the person at the other end was trying to get rid of me..