Using Air Miles on Partner Airlines

Just wanted to share a real life experience I've just gone through:

We need to fly from Seattle to San Diego for a family reunion later this Summer. Spouse and I each have 25K+ Alaska Air miles in our FF accounts. Historically, this has been enough for a round trip on a domestic flight. I figure it's a good use of the miles, so I start shopping for flights. I wasn't happy with what I found.

If I want to keep it at 25K miles each, it requires a really poor itinerary from Seattle to San Diego, with lengthy layovers of several hours each way. Ridiculous schedules. But I can get nonstop flights with a decent schedule - if I want to spend 32.5K miles each.

Not happy, I try and find other options. Turns out Delta is a Partner Airline to Alaska. And I can use Alaska miles on Delta flights. What do you think I find?

Yep: Nonstop flights with reasonable itineraries from Seattle to San Diego for 25K miles each. Ding ding ding! We have a winner!! I booked the flights, and I'm doing the Happy Dance.

Then, to sweeten the pot, I check to see what I can do with the 25K+ miles I have sitting in my Delta FF account for a long time. I booked r/t airfare for my sister to go with us, on the same flights, sitting in adjacent seats with us.

So all three of us are going to the family reunion. I got decent flights in three itineraries with air miles from three accounts, and I used up the Delta miles I didn't think I'd be able to use. I'm a happy camper.

The lesson I wanted to share: If you can't find decent flights on your primary airline, try their partners. In my case it got me what I needed, and saved me 15K air miles in the process.

Dave

Thank you for posting this. My husband is going to Alaska laterh this year and I was wondering if we could use our Delta points for an Alaska Airlines flight.

Way to go Dave! I have had some success using partner miles too . . . mostly with American/British Air and American/Alaska.

To the subsequent poster asking about Delta, good luck. I have never found DL to be worthwhile on partner airlines or vice versa.

BMWguynw said:

The lesson I wanted to share: If you can't find decent flights on your primary airline, try their partners. In my case it got me what I needed, and saved me 15K air miles in the process.

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Sounds great but my question is (I'll use your example in this case): If I have Alaska Airlines points but I want to book a flight on Delta Airlines, to which airline's website or Customer Service would I go to request this?

Thank you.
I have some miles with Hawaiian. I see that AA is their partner.

I was wondering whether HA miles were valued 1 to 1 with AA, but I found my answer.
The following chart lists the points for each flight within a geographical area.
You need this number of Hawaiian miles to take each flight on AA, if space is available.

Roundtrip Award Award Mileage
Economy Business First
1 Roundtrip within North America 30,000 60,000 75,000
1 Roundtrip between North America and Hawaii 45,000 90,000 110,000
1 Roundtrip between North America and Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America; within the Caribbean; between the Caribbean and South America 35,000 70,000 85,000
1 Roundtrip between North America and South America 60,000 120,000 150,000
1 Roundtrip between North America and Europe 60,000 120,000 150,000
1 Roundtrip between North America and Asia 80,000 160,000 200,000

LannyPC said:

Sounds great but my question is (I'll use your example in this case): If I have Alaska Airlines points but I want to book a flight on Delta Airlines, to which airline's website or Customer Service would I go to request this?

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You book the partner airline travel from the originator site. it's not very intuitive on the Alaska page. I found the most help from this page: http://www.alaskaair.com/content/mileage-plan/earn-use-miles/partner-award-travel.aspx

Dave