After keeping partner award rates unchanged during the recent adoption of a ‘harmonised’ award chart, Alaska Mileage Plan has now made an unannounced devaluation for Japan Airlines awards, sadly obliterating a raft of the scheme’s useful ‘sweet spots’.
This is clearly a very disappointing move from Alaska, not only because the airline is currently selling its miles with a 50% bonus, but also given the programme’s previous promise to provide at least 90 days’ notice of any changes to partner award rates.
As a result of this no-notice devaluation, valuable redemptions on Japan Airlines often booked by our readers have now been wiped out.
Changes started in 2022
This devaluation didn’t come completely without warning.
Back in 2022 Alaska announced award chart “changes”, which came in the form of a (very) simplified and far less transparent ‘starting from’ award chart, revealed in December.
The international chart now only shows “pricing from” award rates for flights to and from the North America Zone, which is horribly unhelpful and opaque compared to before, especially since many of our readers are redeeming Alaska Miles for itineraries that don’t touch the North America zone at all, including some of these JAL ones.
It also doesn’t say which partner you will need to book with to access that lowest redemption rate.
The JAL devaluation
Japan Airlines became an Alaska Mileage Plan partner in 2016, long before the US carrier joined the Oneworld alliance, and award rates for this partner have not changed… until now.
On 14th March 2023, Alaska implemented an overnight no-notice award rate change for Japan Airlines flights redeemed using miles, and it’s not pretty.
Here’s a summary of the impact for itineraries from Singapore and this region.
| Award rates using Alaska Miles | |||
| Route / Cabin | Old Rate | New Rate | Increase |
| Singapore – Japan Economy |
15,000 | 25,000 | 67% |
| Singapore – Japan Business |
25,000 | 50,000 | 100% |
| Singapore – USA Economy |
35,000 | 57,500 | 64% |
| Singapore – USA Business |
65,000 | 100,000 | 54% |
| Japan – USA Business |
60,000 | 80,000 | 33% |
| Japan – USA First |
75,000 | 100,000 | 33% |
For many of our readers, the most significant award price hike is a doubling of the rate to redeem in Business Class between Singapore and Japan from 25,000 miles one-way to 50,000 miles one-way.
For those buying Alaska miles in the recent sale with a 50% bonus, this now means effectively paying US$986 for a one-way Business Class redemption, compared to US$493 before.
The previous award rate of 25,000 miles will now only get you an Economy Class seat on these routes!
If you cast your mind back far enough, the JAL ‘stopover trick’ even allowed a pseudo-return itinerary for 25,000 Alaska miles in Business Class (equivalent to just 12,500 miles each way), though this was shut down in October 2019.
Flying from Singapore to the USA in Business Class is also now a completely poor redemption proposition at 100,000 miles one-way, a 54% increase on the 65,000 miles needed previously.
Granted the longstanding attractive award rates were probably overdue an increase, but there are some very significant hikes here and our main complaint is the way this devaluation has been done, without any advance notice to customers.
Those buying miles in the recent sale may well have had a JAL itinerary in mind, but had not yet got round to booking before the devaluation kicked in. They have now been screwed by Alaska, potentially after shelling out thousands of dollars.
Alaska should offer to refund the customers who bought in the ongoing sale with a JAL redemption in mind.
What happened to 90 days’ notice?
Alaska Airlines always promised to give us 90 days’ notice of any change to existing partner award rates.
“We will strive to give at least 90 days’ notice if changes are coming to any current partner awards”
Alaska Airlines
What happneed?
Well it looks to us like Alaska Airlines now sadly interprets redemption pricing changes to its simplified ‘starting from’ award table to require advance notice, and handily for them this hasn’t changed with this devaluation, because other partners like Cathay Pacific are still the cheapest.
It’s certainly a very sneaky policy and significantly erodes trust in the programme once again, which doesn’t seem to have learned from the backlash after Emirates award rates suffered an overnight rate hike back in 2016, with associated negative publicity.
Sticking to the 90 day promise in this case would have allowed members three months to redeem at previous rates, for trips up to 11 months in advance, but that customer-friendly idea seems to have fallen by the wayside.
Cathay, Korean Air and Qantas still have good rates
The good news, for now at least, is that not all is lost if you’re holding on to an Alaska Miles balance.
While it may not have been your first choice redemption, there are still competitive intra-Asia, Singapore to USA and Australia to USA redemptions available with the remaining ‘sweet spots’ in the programme.
Alaska Mileage Plan
remaining ‘sweet spots’
| ‘Sweet Spot’ |  |
|
 |
Singapore to USA First Class |
70,000 miles |
|
Singapore to USA Business Class |
50,000 miles |
|
Australia to USA First Class |
80,000 miles |
|
Australia to USA Business Class |
60,000 miles |
|
Hong Kong to London Business Class |
42,500 miles |
|
Hong Kong to New Zealand Business Class |
30,000 miles |
|
Singapore to Japan Business Class |
22,500 miles |
 |
Australia to USA First Class |
70,000 miles |
|
Australia to USA Business Class |
55,000 miles |
|
Australia Domestic Business Class |
20,000 miles |
 |
Singapore to USA (return) Business Class |
120,000 miles (return) |
All is not lost for those holding an Alaska miles balance to redeem flights to and from Japan, with Cathay Pacific’s 22,500 miles rate in Business Class for flights via Hong Kong.
Longer 4-5 hour domestic Australia flights with Qantas, like Perth to Sydney, are also good value.
Whether these partners retain their competitive rates using Alaska miles remains to be seen. The JAL devaluation wasn’t the first Alaska has made recently, with some (admittedly more modest) increases to British Airways awards snuck in at the start of 2023.
As always, we advise to ‘earn and burn’ with Alaska miles, and that’s especially true now with unannounced award changes kicking in.
Finnair is worth a look
If an Asia – Europe trip is of interest, a Finnair Business Class redemption is reasonable value at 60,000 Alaska Miles.
If you’re redeeming the Helsinki – Tokyo route with this airline, or vice-versa, you’ll also avoid the high fuel surcharge Finnair applies to and from this city when redeeming with most other programmes, like Asia Miles and Avios.
Finnair recently introduced a new Business Class seat that’s getting mostly very positive reviews, and is now deploying this product on most of its Asian routes including Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
Summary
Alaska Mileage Plan miles have proved to be very useful over the years because you can redeem them online for Business Class flights on a range of popular airlines, without having to pay fuel surcharges in most cases.
Unfortunately the programme has a history of making sudden, unannounced devaluations, a disreputable practice that even led them to promise it wouldn’t do so again – but here we are seeing Alaska back at its old tricks.
This very shady practice severely erodes any trust in the programme, but as before we continue to only recommend buying miles in schemes like this when you have an available redemption in sight, which you should then ideally lock in immediately.
Alaska Mileage Plan is definitely not a programme to hold a large balance in speculatively, but at least there is still value to be had with other partner flights if you have any miles you were saving for a JAL trip, including with Cathay Pacific and Finnair.
Hat-Tip to OMAAT.
(Cover Photo: Masahiro Takagi)
I’ll be burning my remaining Alaska miles and then abandoning the program. Shoddy.