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For years now you could redeem Alaska Airlines miles on the likes of British Airways, FinnAir, Japan Airlines, American which are all One World, buttttttt they officially joined One World as a full partner earlier this year. This changed things big time.
While it is quite easy to earn Alaska miles when you fly One World partners, but using Alaska miles on One World partners have been are slower to roll out. One of the most highly anticipated has been Qatar Airways and their world class QSuites.
Interestingly enough, Alaska is keeping airline specific charts. Later this year they will roll out One World charts that will allow mixing of partners – currently you can mix a partner and Alaska, but not partners on a single one way. Overall, I think the Qatar Airways rates are quite competitive – let’s take a look.
Here are some of the Alaska Airlines Award Charts for Qatar Airways
One thing you’ll see here is *Starting at* Essentially, what this means is Alaska has saver award prices, but also negotiated dynamic pricing as well. I would only redeem at the saver rates…you’ll see how much they vary below, and IT IS INSANE
This saver/dynamic table is something we’ve seen Alaska employ with other airlines as well, and while it certainly makes availability more flexible, the rates are just ridiculous.
Here’s an example of this pricing on the Miami – Doha – Cairo route
You can see that when there is “saver” space available that the rate would be 85k points; however, Alaska will allow you to use your points on Qatar flights even when saver space isn’t available. That rate would be 170k and could go even higher as the retail price gets more and more expensive.
85k isn’t a bad rate for this route, but interestingly Alaska charges just 70k to fly this route on British Airways metal and 82.5k on Emirates. Note the BA Surcharges are quite a bit more, but interestingly on this route just $300 vs the normal $700+.
What do you think?
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
The Chase Sapphire Preferred is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based.
Welcome Offer
60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash , Ink Business Unlimited you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
- 3x on dining
- including eligible delivery services for takeout
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards – Chase Travel Portal
- $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Ultimate Rewards/Chase Travel
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred® continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel Portal and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including primary rental car insurance, purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 13 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in the Chase Travel center for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Primary rental car coverage is my favorite
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
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