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Buy 1 Roundtrip, Get 1 One Way in Biz.
Sounds too good to be true, right? It’s not. Right now, Alaska Airlines has INSANE earn rates on partners. One of the best deals is for business class on British Airways. Recently, I flew in BA Business from Stockholm through London to Los Angeles. I knew I’d be earning at an incredible rate, but when I sat down and actually thought about it, I realized that for every roundtrip I flew, I was essentially getting a 1 way ticket in business back in points. How crazy is that? Take a look at what I’m talking about.
Here are the earn rates for British Airways.
If you’re MVP, add another 100%. MVP 75…125%
Here’s what I earned on my trip back from Europe on BA Club World.
24,792 miles – one way.
Fly that roundtrip and you have just shy of 50k miles.
There are plenty of places you can fly with 50k Alaska Air Miles in Business Class.
US to Europe on AA business:
U.S. to Iceland for 50k, 55k in Europe
U.S. to Japan and Korea on AA.
U.S. to Asia on Cathay Pacific
Europe to Hong Kong on Cathay for 42.5k!
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Just curious, what fare class was your BA ticket? I love redeeming Alaska miles for travel on Cathay. You can often find great options about a week to a day or so before your trip.
Hey John – I was booked into I for the long haul and J for ARN to LHR
feel too easy. sleep in the plane and earn 160k as miles already. i calculate i will earn 400k thia and next year with my chwap5 tickets.
Agree with the logic but this is disingenuous. AA has basically no saver biz available. Iceland Air requires several connections and is not lieflat. BA has hundreds of dollars in fuel surcharges. Cathay is the only real option but that requires booking well in advance.
Rowyourboat – disingenuous? dude…i just used Alaska for CX biz and first. I didn’t include all the possible airlines or regions you could find award space, and I didn’t say it was going to be easy…but where there’s a will there’s a way.
Sorry that word was too strong, but I can unequivocally say that Alaska miles to Europe is just not feasible for premium travel. Your options are:
KLM/AF – no space
AA – no space
Iceland Air/Condor – not lie flat, though Condor has nice angle flats.
BA – massive fuel surcharges
Emirates – massive award mile requirements
Finnair – no awards yet, but could be good in the future?
Totally agree that Cathay/JAL are awesome redemptions and IMO great uses of the miles. But if you’re trying to go to Europe from NA, you’re basically SOL on Alaska.
I think the best use of those miles outside of Asia are for domestic travel. One J RT = two saver economy RTs in the US, and Alaska/Virgin has *way* more space than anybody in the US, with UA being a close second.
Thanks for the writeup. Definitely a great thing to note. Another thing is that with the AmEx IAP or AA vacations, you can often get BA F for ~$4-5000, which is comparable to J prices on other airlines. This gets you ~63K miles for LAX-LHR roundtrip, which is pretty insane.
@rowyourboat
Say whatever you want about award space to Europe, my girlfriend and I just this last March flew SFO-CDG on AF in business class for 62.5K AS miles and $18 pp. So it is possible if you have room to be flexible, your persistent and then a little luck is thrown in. I also kept seeing space out of multiple cities on AF so idk where the idea that it’s impossible to get Europe is coming from. East and west coast!
Yeah man, I’m with Miles on this. CX might not be the easiest thing to find on the exact day you want, but it’s not hard. Disingenuous is a strong word.