Edit: Alaska has pulled intra-Asia stopovers from their programme, and some changes to the zones/regions for Singapore Airlines flights redeemed on Alaska Mileage Plan.
In what seems to be a major development in the partnership between Singapore Airlines and Alaska Airlines, frequent flyer members of the latter can now redeem miles for seats on Singapore’s national carrier.
Seats in premium cabins on Singapore Airlines have almost always been restricted to KrisFlyer members. However, with this latest development, KrisFlyer members could face a little more competition as the more coveted seats are now accessible to the Alaska Mileage Plan programme. For those who don’t already know, you may purchase up to 150000 miles per calendar year on the Alaska Mileage Plan programme, which has redemption sweet spots in premium cabins on airlines such as Cathay Pacific and Japan Airlines.
But not all is lost. It is quite widely known that redemptions on Alaska Mileage Plan has its perks, such as the “one-way trick” where you can redeem an almost return journey to Japan for only 25000 miles with a free stopover in Japan.
KrisFlyer members can currently use the stopover fee of US$100 to piece together the return leg of one trip, to the outbound leg of another trip, which saves you thousands of miles. For example, you can link a Melbourne-Singapore sector to a Singapore-San Francisco sector for US$100, which requires less miles overall than if you were to redeem both sectors separately.
Now that you can redeem your Alaska miles in a similar fashion, and make considerable savings particularly for flights within SE Asia, which weirdly includes China, this time with no stopover fee! Take for example the itinerary which includes the Shanghai-Singapore and Singapore-Bali sectors. Using the KrisFlyer stopover option, you’ll have to fork out 39000 miles and the US$100 stopover fee (plus taxes). On the other hand, using your Alaska miles, you’ll only need 25000 miles with no stopover fee!
Being able to use your Alaska miles for redemptions on Singapore Airlines flights presents amazing possibilities for intra-Asia travel in this respect. However, there are even better redemption possibilities for trans-Pacific redemptions too.
Overall, being able to use your Alaska miles on Singapore Airlines flights will provide you with more flexibility. Given that you may purchase up to 150000 miles on Alaska Mileage Plan per calendar year, and sales of up to 50% bonus are pretty common these days, you’ll be saving loads of miles if you plan your itineraries properly and in advance.
