Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan is one of the most valuable airline frequent flyer programs on the market. Their miles are easy to accrue with lots of partner offers on worldwide routes, also the redemption rate is generous for premium cabins.
With the loss of partnership from Air France and KLM in 2018, Alaska Airlines miles have become less valuable and less useful for transatlantic flights. The greatest uses of miles being concentrated in transpacific flights between Asia and North America. The airline has desperately needed to find a partner that offers competitive transatlantic flights.
It now appears that the Israeli airline, El Al, is the carrier of choice. El Al has been expanding drastically in North America; they have already opened direct flights from: Tel Aviv to Boston, Miami, Newark, New York JFK, and San Francisco. El Al is also planning to further expand their network to: Las Vegas, Orlando, and Chicago. Partnering with Alaska Airlines now allows more passengers in small cities to choose El Al.
Passengers flying El Al flights can credit their miles to Alaska Airlines, beginning July 1, 2019.
When crediting El Al flights to the Alaska Mileage Plan, the earning rates will be as follow:
Base miles and class of service bonuses will count towards elite levels, however the additional bonus will not.
Although the chart above was published a few days ago, currently the link for this partnership appears to not exist.
While crediting miles from El Al to Alaska is coming later this year, we do not currently know when can passengers redeem flights on El Al. Moreover, El Al has not announced anything about this partnership yet; at this time we do not know whether passengers flying Alaska can credit miles to El Al, or even redeem for Alaska flights using those miles.
El Al Experience
El Al offers First Class service on their Boeing B777 and B747-400 aircraft. While the service can be more exceptional than in Business Class, the seats in El Al First Class are not as premium when compared to what is offered on other carriers.
Business Class service is offered on most El Al aircraft. The latest Business Class seat on Boeing B787s is a top of the industry one. It offers more privacy and comfort compared to any Business class seats on other El Al aircraft.
Bottom Line
It is great to see Alaska Airlines is adding more partners as a non-alliance airline. For now, let us wait for both Alaska and El Al to publish more information on this partnership, including the redemption rate. If this partnership works well, then using Alaska miles to fly to Europe could be a lot easier and more interesting than it is now.
What do you think of this partnership? How are you going to take advantage of it for your later travel?