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Fly British Airways. Credit to Alaska. Upgrade with Avios
Is it possible? Yes it is. You can fly on British Airways, credit to Alaska and upgrade that flight with Avios. In case you aren’t familiar with the concept of upgrading using points, it’s a fabulous way to pay less and fly more. British Airways has absolutely fantastic deals when you route THROUGH London, but not when you fly from it. So you can fly from Dublin, Stockholm, Copenhagen and route through London to wherever you want to go and find a great fare. In fact, you’ll fly the same plane as you would have if you’d just flown from London. That extra bit of flying not only earns you more points, allows you to see another city, but will save you TONS of cash. But what if you want to credit that flight to another airline. That’s what I’m looking to do a couple times later this year… Fly British Airways. Credit to Alaska. Upgrade with Avios.
I haven’t reviewed British Airways First Class on the A380. Miles’ friend, PointDexter, reviewed the 777-300ER From Seattle to London, but we’d like to sit back, relax and enjoy it ourselves. How can we do that? Upgrading with British Airways Avios. The problem is Alaska is granting INSANE partner earn rates on British Airways and since we’re looking to get top tier status in Alaska, we want to credit our BA flights to Alaska and not BA. So how do we do both?
If you want to credit a BA flight to Alaska you need to call in.
British Airways doesn’t make it too easy to credit flights to a partner through their own website. You can use FinnAir to credit to a OneWorld partner, but they don’t provide the ability to credit to Alaska.
You can request an upgrade when you attach your Alaska Mileage Plan number to your reservation. I was told you can also upgrade online after this is done. In theory you can, but in reality I haven’t been able to make this work.
The problem is that an upgrade seat may not be available and wait times are often fairly long to get a BA rep back on the phone. You can try and upgrade online with your flight credited to a partner, but I was having difficulty. Here’s how you would do it though.
Log in to your account…along the right side you’ll see this. If you can upgrade with Avios…it’s a click away.
You can use Expertflyer to set an alert and then call back. Or look for an award seat to become available ( click that link to see an Avios tutorial.)
Expertflyer is a wonderful tool and makes searching for award tickets much, much easier. Now I can see if an award or upgrade seat becomes available via email.
You could credit the flight to any partner and still upgrade with Avios theoretically.
The great thing is I’ll be able to Fly British Airways. Credit to Alaska and hopefully Upgrade with Avios. Til next time…
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
60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 60k points after $4k spend in 3 months
- Worth $750 in Chase Travel℠ and way more if you maximize transfer partners
- 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, 2024
- $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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