Changes continue to slowly permeate — some people may use the word erode — the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan frequent flier loyalty program; and the latest official announcement portends that the pricing of award travel with American Airlines may “vary depending on demand.”
Award Pricing to Change March 1 2022 Redeeming Mileage Plan Miles For American Airlines Flights
The statement appears at the official Internet web site of Alaska Airlines in its entirety:
American Airlines awards update: Effective March 1, 2022, while the current award prices will continue to be available, note that award pricing on American Airlines flights in the US and Canada may vary depending on demand.
One might argue that this change is to better align award redemptions from Mileage Plan membership accounts with the dynamic pricing of award tickets of American Airlines AAdvantage membership program — with which a strengthened partnership was announced from Alaska Airlines back on Sunday, March 1, 2020 and with which reciprocal upgrades became effective as of Wednesday, April 1, 2020 — which could be potentially beneficial to members in terms of availability…
…while others consider this a potential devaluation, with dynamic pricing on the horizon.
This change could also be the beginning of an alignment of the Mileage Plan membership program with the other frequent flier loyalty programs of the airlines that are members of the oneworld alliance, of which Alaska Airlines became a member effective as of Wednesday, March 31, 2021.
One other notable recent change is the new top tier of elite status in the Mileage Plan frequent flier loyalty program called MVP Gold 100K, which is to be better aligned with the American Airlines AAdvantage frequent flier loyalty program and its partners in the oneworld airline alliance.
Final Boarding Call
Other than those who are involved with the change at Alaska Airlines, no one knows what exactly is in store for members of the Mileage Plan membership program — or when more information will become available — at the time this article was written…
…but at least two months of public notice was given pertaining to this change — unlike on Thursday, March 31, 2016, when Alaska Airlines gave no advance warning or notice whatsoever of the devaluation of premium class award travel on flights which were operated by Emirates Airline…
All photographs ©2018 and ©2019 by Brian Cohen.
