reward travel Archives - TravelSkills

Alaska and Delta are ending their code-sharing and frequent flyer partnerships. (Image: Jim Glab)

Delta and Alaska Airlines are terminating their code-share partnership, and Alaska announced some Mileage Plan changes, including the rate at which Virgin Elevate members can convert their points to Mileage Plan miles.

Who couldn’t see this coming? Delta Air Lines and Alaska Airlines have been engaged in an increasingly tough market share battle at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for the past few years, and now that Alaska has consummated its merger with Virgin America, it is gaining a presence in more of Delta’s most lucrative transcontinental routes. So the two airlines announced today they are ending their code-sharing and frequent flyer partnerships this spring.

The termination takes effect April 30. After that date, the two airlines will no longer offer bookings on each other’s flights that are currently code-shares (although they will still maintain interline agreements for ticketing and baggage connectivity). Members of the two airlines’ loyalty programs can still book and claim award travel on the other carrier through April 30, but not for travel after that date (unless it was booked by December 18, although no changes will be allowed as of May 1). SkyMiles and Mileage Plan members can no longer earn miles on the other carrier after April 30, and elite-level benefits will no longer be mutually offered.

Alaska has cut award travel costs for Mileage Plan members. (Image: Jim Glab)

Alaska noted that the termination of its Delta partnership does not affect its partnership with other members of Delta’s SkyTeam global alliance, including Korean Air, Air France and KLM.

Earlier this month, the Justice Department required Alaska to stop code-sharing on 45 American Airlines routes as a condition of approving Alaska’s merger with Virgin America.

Meanwhile, Alaska also announced the rate for converting Virgin America points into Mileage Plan miles: 1.3 Mileage Plan miles per 1 Elevate point. (Thank goodness they decided to be somewhat generous here and did not go with 1:1!)

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Alaska also announced some changes to its Mileage Plan loyalty program – which has not followed other major carriers in changing over to a spending-based model. The carrier has reduced the mileage cost of many reward flights, has increased earning levels on some partner airlines, and now allows free upgrades for elite members on award flights when they book economy cabin tickets. Here’s Alaska’s chart comparing new and old costs of award travel:

Mileage Plan members will also earn more miles on international partner carriers now, Alaska said – up to 80 percent more for business class and first class travel on British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Fiji Airways, Hainan, Icelandair, Japan Airlines, Korean, LATAM and Qantas. Mileage earnings will also increase for economy class travel on Icelandair, Fiji, Hainan, Japan Airlines and LATAM.

For example, a business class flight on Cathay Pacific from LAX to Hong Kong that previously earned 9,059 Mileage Plan miles will now earn 16,306; and a business class flight from San Francisco to Sydney on Qantas will now earn 25,960 miles instead of the previous 11,126.

Alaska has created a web page outlining the changes to Mileage Plan.

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Booking the perfect award flight isn’t so simple for frequent flyers these days. (Image: Jim Glab)

Is the traditional airline loyalty reward chart — showing fixed mileage costs for various award trips — becoming a thing of the past? Industry observers are predicting that other airlines are likely to follow the lead of Southwest and Delta in changing over to “dynamic pricing” for award trips — i.e., varying the miles or points required based on supply and demand, just as they do with air fares.

It’s just one more blow to the traditional structure of airline mileage programs that the hapless traveler will have to adjust to, as burgeoning load factors give airlines increasing confidence to do pretty much whatever they want with program rules. It’s also helped along by the fact that reward travel requests have been increasing in recent years as capacity remains tight.

The trend to dynamic pricing for award seats is perhaps a natural outgrowth of frequent flyer programs’ ongoing shift from distance-based to spending-based earning models, now in place at Southwest, Delta and United, and perhaps coming to American as well.

Bloomberg News, in an analysis of the trend, predicts that United will begin dynamic pricing for MileagePlus award travel in the second quarter of this year, although the airline wouldn’t confirm it.

Bloomberg also noted that Southwest Airlines, which sets a fixed exchange rate between Rapid Rewards points per dollar of air fare (which is set dynamically and thus varies by award flight) last month boosted that rate from 70 to 80 points per dollar.

The quandary for passengers was perhaps best symbolized by Delta’s decision last year to remove its award chart from the SkyMiles website, so the cost of a reward trip was completely unknown until the traveler researched travel dates and routes.

Given that uncertainty, it’s all the more reason to keep your reward travel plans flexible in the future. And to keep burning your miles as fast as you earn them, since they continually lose value over time.

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