You can now redeem Alaska miles on Malaysia Airlines

As we reported last month, Alaska Airlines is continuing to roll out separate award charts for redemptions on its new oneworld partners, rather than introducing harmonised redemption rates, which will hopefully mean ‘sweet spot’ redemptions on Cathay Pacific and JAL won’t be increasing for now.

While there are still a few award rates to be confirmed for some airlines, most have now been published, most recently including Iberia and Royal Air Maroc.

Alaska has now revealed its rates for redeeming on a more interesting local option – Malaysia Airlines – but that’s unfortunately where the good news ends.

Malaysia Airlines award chart

If you were thinking Alaska’s oneworld membership would be a good way to redeem around the region or to and from Europe on Malaysia Airlines, you’re about to be disappointed.

The rates are nothing short of horrible!

Alaska miles redemption to/from Asia (One-way)
Zone
	Economy	Business
Asia	25,000+	65,000+
India	25,000	65,000
South Pacific	40,000	120,000
Middle East	40,000	120,000
Europe	50,000	175,000

In case you think it looks like a mistake…

That’s right, it’ll cost you 120,000 Alaska miles to fly from Kuala Lumpur to Sydney on Malaysia Airlines in Business Class using Alaska miles, plus US$88 (~S$118) in taxes and fees.

Even in one of Alaska’s best sales, it would set you back US$2,040 (S$~2,740) to buy 120,000 Alaska Miles, and with a cash fare on this flight costing S$2,400 it would clearly make no sense whatsoever to redeem this award.

Since most of our readers in Asia buy the majority of their Alaska miles stash, the Malaysia Airlines award chart is wholly unattractive and almost never worth considering.

We’ve seen similarly poor rates published for other oneworld partners like Qatar Airways, Iberia and Royal Air Maroc, so we don’t hold out too much hope for those still left to be revealed in early 2022:

• S7 Airlines
• SriLankan Airlines

The Alaska ‘sweet spots’

Luckily there continue to be no changes to three existing award charts where using Alaska miles does make good sense.

In case you’d forgotten, here are our favourite existing Alaska Mileage Plan redemption ‘sweet spots’ we’re hoping will be retained going forward.

Mileage Plan ‘Sweet Spot’ Examples

‘Sweet Spot’
	Singapore to New York Business Class	65,000 miles
	Singapore to Tokyo Business Class	25,000 miles
	Singapore to Los Angeles First Class	70,000 miles
	Singapore to Los Angeles Business Class	50,000 miles
	Sydney to New York First Class	80,000 miles
	Sydney to New York Business Class	60,000 miles
	Hong Kong to London Business Class	42,500 miles
	Singapore to Tokyo Business Class	22,500 miles
	Sydney to New York First Class	80,000 miles
	Sydney to Dallas First Class	70,000 miles
	Sydney to Dallas Business Class	55,000 miles
	Perth to Sydney Business Class	20,000 miles

The key one here for us is the excellent 50,000-mile rate in Business Class on Cathay Pacific from Singapore to the USA, with minimal taxes and fees to pay.

Unfortunately it’s not realistic to redeem on Cathay at the moment, given the Hong Kong Government’s current COVID strategy and its impact on the airline.

It’s also worth noting that for Qantas and JAL, award options will eventually be opened up to their entire networks (e.g. Qantas Singapore to Sydney, which you can’t currently redeem). Let’s hope that doesn’t mean existing rates will be increasing.

Alaska has promised to give 90 days notice of any change to existing partner award rates, which will give you some time to redeem your balance in the worst-case scenario of ‘sweet spot’ devaluation with these carriers.

“We will strive to give at least 90 days’ notice if changes are coming to any current partner awards”

Alaska Airlines

At some stage, probably once all the award charts charts are published, we also expect a multi-carrier oneworld award option using Alaska Miles, when redeeming with two or more oneworld airlines in a single itinerary.

This may take the form of a harmonised zone-based chart, like this Avios one, but let’s see what they come up with!

Like all of Alaska’s new oneworld charts published to date since the airline joined the alliance, including the Qatar Airways one, the Malaysia Airlines chart offers very poor value and should certainly not be something to consider using.

Just getting to Australia or the Middle East in Business Class from KL will set you back a whopping 120,000 miles one-way, or 175,000 miles if you’re going to Europe.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the Cathay, JAL and Qantas ‘sweet spots’ don’t go the same way!

(Cover Photo: Airbus)