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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…
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I am traveling for work and the AA code share version of the BA flights are what my company will pay for. Can I still credit to AS if booked via AA instead of BA?
Hey Adam – technically tickets on codeshare won’t earn, but that’s not really strictly enforced. Here’s a work around that typically does. You’ll want to check in via BA to get the ticket stock and keep that physical ticket. You can add your Mileage Plan number if you want so that it’s populated on the ticket, or you can credit it post facto. Either way you’ll need that stock to email to them for the EQM and RDM credits.
Do you need to buy the cash flight at some specific fare bucket or would the cheapest cash fare work for upgrade with avios?
Hey N – the fare bucket has to qualify for an upgrade. upgrades are only for one class of service and only Q,O, and G don’t qualify for upgrades. good luck!