Save up to 50% on Alaska Airlines Award Redemptions With Global Getaways

Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan members can save up to 50% on select award redemptions booked this month, thanks to the Global Getaway promotion. This recurring promotion offers new deals every quarter, and we saw the first version of it earlier this year.

This iteration of Global Getaways is offering discounts on partner award travel to multiple international destinations, and on Alaska Airlines itself to a destination in Canada. The common theme to all those places? They are ski destinations.

Let’s explore the details.

Alaska Airlines Global Getaways — Q4 2024

The latest Global Getaways promotion from Alaska Airlines allows Mileage Plan members to save up to 50% on select international award redemptions. This recurring promotion offers new destinations and deals 4 times per year, and you can use these offers to save when redeeming Alaska miles for flights.

Under the terms of its current offering, Mileage Plan members can save on international partner awards to select skiing destinations booked between December 2 and December 31, 2024. These deals are good for travel between January 1 and April 30, 2025.

Here’s a look at one-way prices for the current Global Getaways promotion:

The regular pricing varies greatly, depending on where you’re flying from, since Alaska Airlines now uses distance-based award pricing.

Taxes and fees are not discounted. You should also note that 50% is the maximum possible discount, but in many practical cases the actual reduction compared to regular award pricing is less.

For example, Global Getaways prices from San Francisco (SFO) to Geneva and Zurich, at 20,000 miles per person, present a 43% discount from the regular price of 35,000 miles.

From the East Coast, the discount is even less. For example, 20,000 miles from New York City (JFK) to Vienna is just 27% less than the regular distance-based price of 27,500 miles. That said, 20,000 miles to fly from the U.S. to the cradle of Alpine skiing, at the height of ski season, is undoubtedly a bargain.

Make sure, however, to note how different your options can be. At the 20,000-mile price, travel times to Vienna range from just under 14 hours to nearly 31 hours, and the taxes and fees can be either $26 or $355!

The same wide variation in duration and taxes and fees applied to flights we found to Almaty, in Kazakhstan, a lesser-known skiing destination that might appeal to adventurous souls.

You could get there from New York cheap and easy with 30,000 miles, $57 in taxes and fees, and a quick connection in Doha, Qatar (DOH). Or you could take more than 50 hours, backtrack to Seattle to spend 24 hours there, and then connect via Doha — doing so for an absurd 200,000 miles in coach.

Also, the 30,000-mile discounted price shown here from New York to Almaty, while a very good deal in absolute terms, is just 14% less than the regular 35,000.

This range of trip durations, as well and taxes and fees, was common in our results. Make sure to scroll through all the available options before making a decision.

Kelowna (YLW), in Canada’s British Columbia, is the only destination among the 6 current Global Getaways served by Alaska Airlines itself, not by one of its (many) partners. The 10,000-mile discounted price we found on many flights from the lower 48, via Alaska’s hub in Seattle (SEA), is again not a bad price even if it’s not much of a discount.

From New York-JFK to Kelowna, the regular price is 12,500 miles, so Global Getaways would only save you 20%. But with skiing becoming so expensive these days, any way to save on a ski trip is welcome. (If you ski more than a few days a year, by the way, a multi-resort season ski pass will more than pay for itself.)

How To Earn Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Miles

Historically, Alaska Airlines MileagePlan miles have been relatively hard to earn since they couldn’t be transferred 1:1 from any major program. However, that changed when Bilt added Alaska as a 1:1 transfer partner in March. (You also can transfer Marriott Bonvoy points to Alaska Airlines, but only at a 3:1 ratio.)

So now, in addition to earning Alaska Airlines miles through flying, Alaska Airlines credit cards, Mileage Plan Shopping, Mileage Plan Dining, and transferring from Marriott, you can transfer Bilt points to Alaska Airlines.

And with the new partnership between Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines, you can transfer miles 1:1 between programs freely and instantly. That means you can transfer Membership Rewards points to Hawaiian and then move those over to Alaska Airlines — for now. Alaska Airlines has hinted that this may go away.

Final Thoughts

Alaska Airlines has a promotion called Global Getaways that promises to offer new and exciting deals 4 times per year. The third set of deals features discounted award bookings on partner airlines to 5 international destinations focused on skiing in Europe and Asia, plus award bookings on Alaska Airlines itself to a destination in Canada. And of course, you do not have to be a skier to check out these destinations.