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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.
Fingers crossed we get this partnership sooner than later.
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 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℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
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.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
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.
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