Alaska Airlines Changes Reward Chart, Blames ‘Travel-Hacking’

Mileage Plan, Alaska Airlines’ frequent flyer program, announced dramatic and sudden changes to Emirates business- and first-class award redemptions Thursday.

The cost of a business- or first-class award ticket increased between 67% and 100%. This means that a first-class round-trip ticket between the United States and Africa increased from 200,000 to 400,000 miles.

The Seattle-based airline said that, thanks to “travel-hacking,” it could no longer offer the previous cost of the Emirates awards, which it noted “have long been known as an exceptionally good deal.”

Alaska explained travel hacking as bookings “intended to exploit Mileage Plan’s award routing rules” and said that the new award levels will continue to allow the airline to offer Emirates business class and first class tickets via Mileage Plan.

“Today we made a necessary change that caught many of our members by surprise,” said Ryan Butz, the airline’s managing director of loyalty marketing. “We apologize to the customers who may have been surprised by today’s update, which we were unable to communicate in advance.”

(Photo: Accura Media Group)