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Alaska Air announces end of KLM/Air France partnership

Alaska Airlines Plane

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Effective April 30, 2018 – partners no more

I received an email yesterday announcing the termination of Alaska’s partnership with KLM and Air France. Honestly, I’m neither surprised nor disappointed. I matched to Alaska’s top tier MVP75 last year from Executive Platinum. As a result, I’ve credited most of my miles this year to Alaska and haven’t turned back. I’ll probably have to do a small mileage run to retain MVP75 ( it’s looking like I’ll be 3500 miles short), and every time I’ve looked at redeeming awards on KLM/AF the avail is crap, and the taxes and fees are through the roof.

In addition to this, AF announced a significant ( potentially fixed rate valuation) of their loyalty program.  This creates a level of ambiguity for partners that would lead me to seek travel on other airlines if given the choice. In regards to Alaska, what I’m hoping replaces this partnership is Aer Lingus. Aer Lingus announced they would start flying to Seattle, and in the past, Alaska has been very agreeable to codeshare/partnerships, with those airlines that service their hub. This would be fantastic as Aer Lingus has a very solid business class, and I’d love to transit via Dublin. Dublin, historically, offers great deals on Europe/N.America business class. Being able to snag a nice flight to Dublin would make facilitating these deals easier.

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Fingers crossed we get this partnership sooner than later.

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