Earlier in the year Alaska Airlines and Emirates announced a partnership, though indicated that mileage redemption reciprocity wouldn’t occur until later in 2012. Then just a couple of weeks ago Alaska announced a delay in their Emirates award chart until early 2013.

Well, it looks like we now have an updated date for this announcement, per a travel agent memo that my friend Chris passed along:

Skywards Program Update

Redemption cooperation with Alaska Airlines (AS): as of January 16th, Skywards members can redeem their Skywards miles on all Alaska Airlines flights. As of the same date, Alaska Mileage Plan members can redeem their Mileage Plan miles on all Emirates flights. These program enhancements give our US based Skywards members much richer redemption opportunities and therefore makes our frequent flyer program stronger.

So I guess we’ll know the award chart in a couple of weeks at the latest. After my flight on Emirates a couple of weeks ago I’m waiting anxiously to see what this award chart looks like… I need another shower!

Posted on December 28th, 2012 by lucky
Filed under: Alaska, Awards, Emirates | 10 Comments »

  1. December 28th, 2012 at 10:06 pm

    Todd said,

    As I see it, this change means that US based Skywards members finally get some value out of their miles. Not everyone is headed to the UAE. :)

  2. December 28th, 2012 at 10:34 pm

    Pointsandtravel said,

    yippee! can’t wait either!

  3. December 28th, 2012 at 11:58 pm

    Ozaer N. said,

    FINALLY!!!..the moment we have been waiting for!….

  4. December 29th, 2012 at 12:22 am

    FrequentFlyerRS said,

    Great news! Although, if I’m not mistaken, Alaska award redemptions must originate in the USA, so no luck hopping a LHR => DXB redemption? Please correct if I’m wrong Lucky, as I am currently local to Europe so haven’t been paying attention to my Alaska miles…

  5. December 29th, 2012 at 1:44 am

    Vincent said,

    I wondering if they’d let you do Australia to US redemptions, now that would be good…

  6. December 29th, 2012 at 8:44 am

    Golfingboy said,

    @FrequentFlyerRS it will depend on the arrangement between AS and EK, so we won’t know until the award chart is released on the AS site. However, you are most definitely not restricted to ex-USA.

    You can redeem on a bunch of airlines from Europe to the USA, intra-Europe awards on AF/KLM, and HKG on Cathay. With that said, when AS negotiates such agreement, it is apparent that they negotiate with ex-USA based customers in mind.

    Here is the link to the AS award chart for Europe redemptions:
    http://www.alaskaair.com/content/mileage-plan/using-miles/award-chart-europe.aspx

  7. December 29th, 2012 at 2:41 pm

    Lantean said,

    “… I need another shower!”
    I sort of hope you have showered since and you are not waiting for your next Emirates flight… haha.
    :)

  8. December 29th, 2012 at 3:41 pm

    CDKing said,

    I’m ready to burn some AS miles

  9. December 29th, 2012 at 11:58 pm

    Travel Summary – 12/29/12 said,

    [...] from One Mile at a Time explains that the new Alaska/Emirates award chart is coming really soon! Filed Under: Travel Summary [...]

  10. January 1st, 2013 at 10:42 am

    CDKing said,

    Missydarlin posted stated that it maybe delayed later than 1/16

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