Alaska Airlines Now Allows Mixed-Partner Award Redemptions

Updated: February 14, 2025, 3:09pm CST

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How To Book Mixed-Partner Awards on Alaska Airlines
Final Thoughts

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Alaska Airlines is finally allowing mixed-partner awards redemptions on its site, meaning you can book itineraries flown by more than 1 of Alaska’s partners. This is very good news for travelers, but there are a few issues.

Let’s see how this works in practice.

How To Book Mixed-Partner Awards on Alaska Airlines

Mixed-partner awards are now bookable on the Alaska site. This means that you can book award flights including itineraries flown by more than 1 partner airline. Before, you could book only award itineraries including segments on Alaska Airlines itself and 1 partner — but not more than 1.

This was a limitation of Alaska Airlines’ Mileage Plan, a program that was otherwise excellent for booking award flights on partner airlines. If you found an award itinerary from Seattle (SEA) to London (LHR) via Los Angeles (LAX) that included a British Airways flight from Los Angeles to London, you would only be able to fly the Seattle to Los Angeles segment on Alaska Airlines, even if there was a flight on American Airlines available.

That’s because you could only book an itinerary involving 1 partner (British Airways) and not 2 (British and American Airlines). With Alaska’s relatively small route map, this could result in a restricted choice of possible itineraries.

Now, as first reported by Frequent Miler, the Alaska site shows award itineraries involving 2 partners, such as Seattle (SEA)-Chicago (ORD)-London (LHR)-Copenhagen (CPH) on a mix of American Airlines and British Airways.

Alaska Airlines Mixed Partner Award — Image Credit: Alaska Airlines

There are some limitations to keep in mind.

The first is that mixed-partner itineraries only seem possible when those mixed partners are American Airlines and British Airways. For all other partners — and Alaska Mileage Plan has many — the old rule of 1 partner plus Alaska Airlines itself still seems to apply. At least, that’s what our research on the Alaska site turned up.

The second limitation is that the award prices for mixed-partner itineraries can be higher than single-partner bookings on the exact same route.

Alaska has a distance-based award chart for partner airlines. For example, a flight from Los Angeles to Zurich via London on partner airlines should cost 35,000 Mileage Plan miles, since it’s between 5,001 and 7,000 miles flight distance:

Alaska Partner Award Chart EMEA — Image Credit: Alaska Airlines

And indeed, Los Angeles to Zurich via London flown entirely on British Airways costs 35,000 miles, just like the chart says it should. But if 1 segment is flown on American Airlines, adding another partner, the price jumps to 42,500 miles for the same date (although with lower taxes and fees.)

Alaska Partner Award LAX LHR ZRH — Image Credit: Alaska Airlines

This might simply be a glitch as the new mixed-partner awards are rolled out. We will update this article if things change regarding pricing or the partners available.

Hot Tip:

Alaska miles are very valuable but hard to obtain since the only transfer partner is Bilt Rewards. There’s a neat workaround, though: You can transfer American Express points to Hawaiian Airlines and from there to Alaska, all at a 1:1 ratio.

Final Thoughts

Being able to book mixed-partner awards on Alaska Airlines’ site is unquestionably good news. Alaska has a very useful loyalty program for booking partner flights. Even with a few minor issues, this development should help put Alaska’s Mileage Plan program on your radar if it isn’t already.