Alaska Mileage Plan Booking: British Air partner verses all others

I think the UK can charge big fees for flying into/out of their airports (or through), so it may have nothing at all to do with Alaska Airlines. In fact, I think they don't charge you anything other than the taxes and a "partner airline booking fee" of $25 per round trip ticket. The rest are just taxes and fees passed on to you.

It could also be that Alaska has no agreement to book those flights with points and is simply passing on the cost of the actual flights (just buying tickets) to you.

British Air started doing this several years ago at a time when every carrier added a big fuel surcharge (or some such) on mileage award travel, and then every carrier except British eventually decided that issue was done and backed off of it. This comparatively huge charge for award redemption, as well as British's policy for many years of giving only partial mileage credit for flights flown, makes them a barely-useful partner on the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, in my opinion. (Not at all like the late 90's when they were my favorite part of the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, for both paid travel and award redemption.) It's not new, but it's more noticeable now that the departure of Delta/KLM/Air France from the plan leaves such a large hole in their partner service to Europe.

So, Jim, you and I may need to diversify our Mileage Plan accounts, or start traveling to other continents. I'm willing to give Condor a try, too.

I too need to rethink the value of the Alaska plan.

Forget award redemptions on British Airways.

Doesn't matter if you use Alaska miles or anyone else's. BA tacks on staggeringly high "fuel surcharges" (which have nothing to do with the cost of jet fuel, and everything to do with just sticking it to customers). It's simply a price gouge; most other airlines don't do this (every airline is different).

To make it worse, the UK has the highest government-imposed airport fees in the world. These fees vary based primarily on two factors: 1) what class of service you're in (business class, first class gets extreme charges), and 2) an odd way they calculate your flight distance. So, flying in business class, on BA, departing from London, you get the double-whammy: stunning charges from BA (they code it as "YQ" ostensibly a charge for the fuel used), and then the UK sticks you with a large fee for the privilege of departing from London, too (you pay extra for doing this in Business class and even more for a flight all the way to the US). The result, as you've seen, is that the cost for a "free ticket" can be thousands of dollars in penalty fees.

The solutions?

1. Never use BA for an award ticket. One problem solved.

2. Avoid flying out of London. Get to Shannon or Brussels (not expensive) and depart from there, you'll save some more.
Note that the high government-imposed fees are only charged when departing - so fly in to London, and then fly home from...well, anyplace else.

The nasty "fuel surcharges" imposed by BA are charged in any direction. The way to beat that is to simply fly another airline that doesn't try to gouge their passengers.

BA has charged this "supplemental fee" for award seats as long as we have been flying them. Nothing to do with Alaska Miles; they charge the same when you book with BA miles ( Avios) which is what we do. The fee makes it a waste of miles to book BA in Economy, but we feel it is well worth it to fly Business Class. I just booked our next trip (May 2019) and the fee for our Business Class seats is $506 each. To that I added $140 each to reserve seats on the upper deck of the 747, with a window seat for me and aisle seat for him.

We will pay that much again for our flight home when I book it in two weeks. So around $2600 for two round trip tickets in Business Class. Effectively we are getting Business Class, with a flat bed seat, lounge access, nice food, etc., for the cost of Economy by using our miles. We both sleep well on the plane and arrive rest d and ready to hit the ground running. And my husband has a bad back which makes it very uncomfortable and even risky for him to fly in Economy. We probably would not do long-haul flights at all if we couldn't get the flat bed seats.

So we feel it is worth it, but not everyone will agree with me.

There was a sad loss when Delta, Air France and KLM stopped being award partners! BA is expensive and I would never consider them for coach. I would consider them for First class or Business even with the fee since $600 is still pretty good for an upgrade to business. It is still possible to go on American Airlines, but that is always a connecting flight from the west coast.

The problem does come from BA though, not Alaska.

Lola, I don't disagree with you about the benefits of flying long-haul in a good business class seat with a flat bed that allows you to actually get good sleep (and the upper deck of a 747 is certainly a great place for that).

Where I'd disagree is whether it's worth paying BA their outrageous fees or not. If you feel it is, then great. Personally, I'd never do that though. I've been able to utilize other airlines and get a similar experience without tossing the airline $2500 on top of a big pile of miles. I'll admit it makes getting to the UK in a good seat more challenging, though (so, I go to continental Europe more often).

There's no doubt it's a good way to get there. The fee is just hard for me to swallow.

Yeah, I sure miss being able to take a direct flight on Delta from PDX to AMS with Alaska miles! The AA connections do work OK for me, though, because I can stop on the east coast for a few days to visit family, and I can get a direct flight from PHL to many European cities. (Alaska allows one free stop-over.) Looks like the Condor flights could work (direct flights from PDX for me only on some days, and sometimes they are as cheap as 25K miles one way). It's also possible to fly Alaska only one way to Europe and fly home with someone else (use miles from another airline, or just buy a cheap one-way ticket if you can find one).

More worrisome is what was posted recently about Alaska doing away with "free cancellation/changes up to 60 days before departure." That's HUGE - and means I'll probably stop accumulating Alaska miles. AA allows free changes if you don't change departure/arrival cities but not free cancellation - but that's better than an Alaska award that allows neither in the future.

Responding to Lola: I understand your point that $2K+ is a good price to pay for business class. My point is if you fly into Frankfurt direct from SEA, you will save 90% of that cost which could be used for other things and you would still have the posh experience.

Focusing on a cash-back credit card is my revised strategy and then use the cash to purchase more travel, airfares included.

On our trip this summer we are actually returning home directly from Frankfurt as you suggest, instead of flying BA. The Condor business class seats were $1122 each ( one way) when I booked them more than a year in advance.

But they are not lie-flat seats and I do not expect the level of service we get from BA. It is a daytime flight, like the BA flights westbound, so sleeping will not be as important. As for the rest, it will be interesting to compare.

I have thought about using our Alaska Miles on Iceland Air or Emirates to Europe, instead of flying BA. But we have no interest in flying to Dubai to get to London. Iceland might work if we built in a stopover; it is a place I would very much like to see.

But for next May's trip we have a companion certificate on BA to use ( 2 for 1 on the Avios, but not the extra fees) so we will stick with them. I really like the 747 and was very happy when they put them Back on the Seattle route for the evening flight.

Coincidentally, I just got notice from the court of a settlement in a class action against BA for the fuel surcharges. The case was filed in 2012 and BA stopped calling the supplemental fees "fuel surcharges" after that date ( but still charges the supplement on award redemptions). Class members are people who booked award tickets between 2006 and April of 2013 and paid the fees. the settlement provides for Avios (up to 35,000) to be paid into one's club account, or a cash award amounting to 16.9% of the amount paid in fuel surcharges.

The case is Dover v. British Airways, Case No. 12cv5567 RJD in the Eastern District of New York if you care to look it up.

Our trips during that period include two award tickets for our daughters purchased with our Alaska Miles (plus fuel surcharges) so I wonder how that will be handled. I submitted a claim form when the case was first filed but had totally forgotten about it.

Lola - we did the exact same thing - booked Business with our Avios. Can't wait to fly next week in the upper deck of a 747:). I have 2 companion passes, but we haven't made any plans as of yet to use them. I hate to see them go to waste though:)

The Alaska Air website is excellent for showing the real cost of using ff miles. I would never choose BA.