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Yesterday, after Sharon’s post about 1 more day to transfer SPG points to Virgin America!, reader Chris commented in to ask:

Are Alaska Airline miles any good for someone on the east coast? We live in Florida and it can be difficult to find flights on some west coast airlines. I would love to see Thailand and Cambodia.

So even though the SPG transfer to Virgin America deal is over (hopefully you got in on it if you wanted to), I thought it was worth exploring Chris’s comment to see if Alaska miles are truly “worth it” for readers on the east coast

Alaska in Florida

Alaska Airlines actually already flies 3 nonstop flights to Florida from its hub in Seattle – Orlando (MCO), Fort Lauderdale (FLL), and Miami (MIA).  I checked award availability for some random dates, and it seemed to be pretty good – here’s an example of award availability from Orlando to Seattle in May

alaska-miles-worth-it-orlando-seattle

12,500 miles would be the “saver” price.  SEA-MCO was actually even better (though depending on your dates, getting the lowest price required taking a red eye flight)

[4 tips to help you sleep on a red eye flight in economy]
alaska-miles-worth-it-seattle-orlando

Availability to / from Fort Lauderdale or Miami was decent, depending on your dates.  As always, being flexible with your dates, times and locations will help you find the best deal.

And don’t forget also that with the recent Alaska / Virgin America merger, the new Alaska will also fly to Orlando and Fort Lauderdale from its new San Francisco hub.

The real value of Alaska miles – partner awards!

I actually felt the same way as Chris back when I first started – why would I worry about getting Alaska miles when I live in the Alaska “dead zone”?

alaska-airlines-checking-offers-route-map

Then I found that the real benefit of Alaska miles are through their partners.  Alaska Mileage Plan partners with several international airlines (Emirates, LAN, British Airways, Air France, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Qantas among others) as well as American and Delta Airlines (for now)

We used Alaska miles to fly Emirates First Class last year

(READ MORE: Help! I’m “stuck” in Emirates First class on ONLY a 777!!!)

(READ MORE: Emirates A380 first class review Dubai to New York)

and we used Alaska miles to get lie flat seats to Peru (through their partnership with LAN).  Living in Florida, you won’t even be burnt by the fact that you can not combine multiple different partners

Using Alaska miles to fly to SE Asia

But Chris wanted to go to Thailand or Cambodia, so let’s look at Alaska to Southeast Asia.  Alaska has a different award chart for different partners, so to go to Asia, it will depend on which partner you fly.  I’m also not sure where in Florida Chris is, so I chose Orlando.  Here was my first date search

alaska-bangkok-florida

You can see that there are a couple of different options – note that the Korean Air booking is so high because Korean Air awards are required to be booked roundtrip (or rather, they’re the same price whether you book roundtrip or not).  There are 3 different options depending on whether you want to book with Korean Air, Hainan Airlines or Japan Airlines

Remember too that booking an award with Alaska Airlines means that you get one free stopover, even on a one-way!  That can be a huge benefit of using Alaska miles.

Readers what do you think?  Are Alaska miles worth it, even if you don’t live on the west coast?


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