Two weeks ago we reported on changes to the Alaska Mileage Plan loyalty scheme, the most important of which for Singapore-based members who would likely be using this program for partner redemptions was increased change and cancellation fees for award bookings.
In summary the US$125 fee for cancelling or changing an award ticket within 60 days of travel will become mandatory for all bookings changed or cancelled regardless of how far in the future they are.
This will apply to all bookings made on or after 5th June, so you have until 23:59 Alaska time on 4th June to redeem and keep the existing fees schedule for your booking (if you’re pushing it to the limit that’s 15:59 Singapore time on 5th June – almost exactly a week from now).
Remember the fees change is for bookings made on or after 5th June 2018, so if you book before then you’ll still be entitled to free a change or cancellation provided it’s made more than 60 days before travel, even if that flight is early next year for example.
Why Alaska?
If you’re wondering why we talk about Alaska Mileage Plan, see our article from March about how it can give you good value redemptions on several major airlines both within Asia and further afield, including a ‘stopover trick’ with JAL which gets you to Japan and back in business for just 25,000 miles.
On-going Alaska Miles Sales
If you’re looking to take advantage of an Alaska redemption you may be interested in a couple of promotions currently running which let you buy their miles at good value. Firstly the cheapest option – and that’s to buy SPG Starpoints in their 35% off sale which ends on Thursday (31st May).
These can be converted 1:1 into Alaska miles, which takes a couple of days, and there’s a 5,000 miles bonus for every block of 20,000 Starpoints converted. That means even if you have no Starpoints in your SPG account currently you can buy 20,000 then convert them into 25,000 Alaska miles – enough to get you the JAL stopover trick.