According to JonNYC over at TravelingBetter (who’s literally always right), the following benefits will be announced late next week for American AAdvantage elite members flying on Alaska Airlines:

Priority Check-in and Boarding – Gold, Platinum & Executive Platinum

Express Security Line – Platinum & Executive Platinum

Preferred Seating – Platinum & Executive Platinum

Bag Fee Waiver – Gold, Platinum & Executive Platinum

Apparently Alaska elites will have similar benefits when flying on American. I wish there were upgrade reciprocity, but I guess since American doesn’t give their own elites complimentary upgrades (with the exception of Executive Platinum members) that won’t be happening anytime soon. Regardless, more reciprocity with elite benefits is always a great thing.

Alaska Airlines MVP Gold members currently receive four paper upgrade certificates per year which can be applied to any fare.

Well, as of the next elite year, MVP Gold members will receive four electronic upgrade certificates in place of the paper ones. There’s no doubt that’s easier and the old system was abused pretty heavily, though here’s the real kicker — they’ve added fare class restrictions. Previously any revenue fares could be upgraded, while now “G” and “T” class fares are excluded, which are the lowest fare classes.

Furthermore, all current paper upgrade certificates have to be redeemed by December 31, 2011.

That’s gotta sting at least a little bit…

Bank of America is offering 40,000 Mileage Plan miles upon approval of the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Signature Visa credit card through July 30, 2011. In addition you get two Board Room passes and a $99 companion certificate, which is incredibly useful, given that it’s even valid for first class tickets. An Alaska Airlines employee in this FlyerTalk thread suggests it’s a targeted offer, though I don’t see that in the terms and conditions.

Alaska Airlines miles can be some of the most valuable out there, assuming you’re looking for certain types of awards. They partner with so many different airlines across all three alliances, giving lots of flexibility. The frustration is that they don’t let you mix and match partners, which makes it tough to book certain types of awards. In other words, you can’t mix American and Cathay Pacific on the same award, or Delta and Air France, etc.

One of the best redemptions is for Cathay Pacific first class to Asia, which costs 140,000 miles, and they even allow a free stopover. While you can’t add an award flight on another airline partner to get to the Cathay Pacific gateway (San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Vancouver on the west coast), you can include a flight on Alaska Airlines as part of the award ticket.

If you’re really into getting the most flying “bang for the buck” it’s also only 140,000 miles to fly Cathay Pacific first class from the US to South Africa… via Hong Kong! That’s a 15 hour flight to Hong Kong, and then another 15 hour flight from Hong Kong to Johannesburg. So that’s nearly 60 hours of international first class flying for 140,000 miles, with the option to stopover in Hong Kong on your way to South Africa.

It might just be time to apply for this credit card (assuming it’s not targeted), fly Alaska Airlines to Hawaii, and transfer some points from Starwood to have enough miles for a first class award to Asia or South Africa.

Alaska Airlines has a pretty decent fare sale to Hawaii for tickets purchased through June 21 for travel between August 22 and October 31. Through the fare sale, tickets from the west coast are readily available for $360-400 all-in.

In and of itself that’s not earth shattering, though they’re also offering 25,000 bonus miles to new Mileage Plan members residing in Northern California that travel to Hawaii. So for a sub-$400 ticket from San Jose, Oakland, or Sacramento, you earn 25,000 bonus miles.

Add to that the fact that Alaska Airlines status matches most mid-tier elites to their MVP Gold level (which comes with four confirmable upgrade certificates), and you’re looking at a roundtrip first class ticket to Hawaii for under $400, plus about 35,000 Mileage Plan miles (the distance is about 2,500 miles in each direction, so 5,000 miles roundtrip, and that’s doubled for being an MVP Gold).

Not too shabby! I might just have to move to Northern California and fly Alaska Airlines first class to Hawaii for a weekend at the St. Regis Princeville thanks to Starwood’s very nice second quarter promotion.

It’s not often that I post about fare sales, but this is a good one. Probably in response to JetBlue starting service to Anchorage, Alaska Airlines is offering $234 all-in roundtrip fares between Los Angeles and Anchorage through the end of June. Fares for later dates in summer are $100 more roundtrip. They also have a double miles promotion for travel between Los Angeles and Anchorage.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t the best mileage run fare the world has ever seen, but I know I’ve always wanted to visit Alaska in the summer, and fares are usually sky high. If you prefer you can even earn American or Delta elite qualifying and redeemable miles for travel on Alaska.

Another thing to keep in mind, should you want to try Alaska Airlines first class, is that they status match most elite status with competing airlines, and typically middle tier status with another program will get matched to MVP Gold status. MVP Golds get unlimited upgrades and also get four “confirmed” upgrades per year, making it possible to lock in an upgrade.

If you accrued Alaska miles and registered for the promotion above, you would be earning about 14,000 redeemable miles for the trip, which in and of itself is a pretty good mileage run, not even factoring in that this is a fun destination.

If only the fares to get from Tampa to Los Angeles weren’t $500+…

Alaska Airlines is offering new Mileage Plan members that “reside in a ZIP code that begins with 923, 932 or 934 – 961″ the following for travel through October 1:

• 25,000 bonus miles if you fly roundtrip on a Northern California non-stop to Hawaii, or
• 12,500 bonus miles if you fly roundtrip between Northern California and anywhere other than Hawaii that Alaska flies.

This is a smashingly good deal. Fares to Hawaii are very reasonable on Alaska, so this could work out quite nicely for anyone that has considered flying Alaska. It’s also worth keeping in mind that they match to MVP Gold from most mid to top tier status levels, and a status match comes with four Gold upgrade certificates, which can be confirmed at the time of booking assuming there’s upgrade space. A $300 ticket to Hawaii in first class for about 35,000 redeemable miles doesn’t sound like a bad way to spend a weekend, for those of you in Northern California.

(Tip of the hat to Gary)

I realize this is entirely insignificant to most of the rest of you, though there’s a Tampa Tribune article today about Tampa Airport’s chief executive eying service from Alaska Airlines and Virgin America (despite the initial screw up of them saying “Alaska Airways” and “Virgin Atlantic” in the article). I’m not sure what kind of a chance there actually is of this happening, though I wasn’t aware that airports could “eye” airlines. I mean, I suppose they can, though it seems like it’s more the airlines doing the research and number crunching, as opposed to the airports. I guess the airport could come up with an especially tempting deal that the airline couldn’t turn down, but that’s the extent of it, as far as I can imagine.

Anyway, I’d certainly welcome more competition.

On a somewhat related note, I’m always fascinated by the economics of once a day service, which Alaska Airlines seems to do a lot of. It amazes me that such a business model is viable, given that they often don’t outsource all of their operations yet don’t have any sort of economies of scale. Just a random side thought.

Hoping to see the Virgin and Eskimo here soon!

A friend invited me to Alaska’s Board Room in Seattle yesterday, so I figured I’d write up a quick review. I’m pretty sure I’ve been to just about every other lounge operated by a US carrier, so I wasn’t expecting it to be too different from the others; they’re all basically the same (at least when looking at the big picture, comparing them to lounges in virtually any other country).

And overall the Board Room was the same. Well, maybe it was a bit nicer. The first thing worth noting is that in addition to those with lounge memberships, Alaska lets their paid first class passengers into the lounge, which is certainly nice. The Board Room is located just past security, so is easy to find. The agents at the entrance were very friendly; no matrons here! They seemed like they legitimately wanted to help.

Board Room entrance

Since this is their “flagship” Board Room it’s rather large. At the entrance there’s a staircase leading to the second floor, along with a walkway to the seating area on the first floor. Both floors have a serving area, and the first floor has some computer desks while the second floor has more seating.

Staircase

Second floor seating area

The views of the apron are very nice, especially on a beautiful day like yesterday.

Views

You know how I’m obsessed with hot nuts on United? Yeah, well it seems like the Alaska folks like their soup. During lunch time the Board Room has soup, and in yesterday’s case it was some sort of cheddar broccoli soup. That’s in addition to veggies, cheese cubes, chips, snack mix, and animal crackers. There’s also a soft drink serving station (with real glasses) and a counter where the agents will pour you booze (no self serve).

Drink dispenser

Veggies and cheese

The “spread”

Not bad at all!

Alaska has now officially announced the details of their new top tier status level, MVP Gold 75K. As the name suggests this is for those that earn 75,000 elite qualifying miles per year on Alaska, or 90,000 miles or 90 segments on Alaska and their qualifying partners.

Given that the previous highest tier, MVP Gold, required 40,000 elite qualifying miles on Alaska or 50,000 miles or 60 segments on their partners, I can’t blame them for making a new tier to give their super frequent fliers some extra benefits, even if it’s as simple as a higher upgrade priority. Anyway, here are the main benefits with this tier over MVP Gold:

• Upgrades five days before departure (as opposed to three for MVP Gold members)
• Ability to nominate someone to MVP status
• 50,000 bonus miles for attaining MVP Gold status (which isn’t really a new benefit since those that passed 75,000 miles received those bonus miles in the past)
• Special customer care and reservations phone line
• Free DigEplayer when flying in coach
• Four free Board Room day passes

So the benefits aren’t earth shattering, but they do accomplish the goal of providing some extra benefits to their most frequent flyers. I think the name they chose is also interesting. They didn’t name it MVP Platinum or some similar precious metal, but instead built off the Gold level. There are probably several good reasons for this. First of all they won’t have to spend as much money on changing signage, but I think it also reflects the fact that they view this as an extension of the existing Gold level, as opposed to an entirely revolutionary level. So that means most Gold members that won’t be Gold 75K members shouldn’t be too unhappy about it, in my opinion. Your experience shouldn’t change all that much.

(Tip of the hat to Alex)

Alaska Mileage Plan is offering “Oregonians and residents of Southwest Washington” 5,000 miles just for joining Mileage Plan. They’re offering an extra 20,000 miles for making one qualifying roundtrip (any ticket flying from, to, or connecting in Portland that isn’t a “Hot Deal” fare) between February 15 and April 1.

Very tempting! Add that to an Alaska Visa and a status match, and it could be the start of a nice relationship.

(Tip of the hat to Alex)