Today Alaska Airlines announces some major changes to its MileagePlan program. This follows some big changes to its award charts earlier this year. A lot of the now-announced changes are actually quite positive and should be something to be excited about. To note, all the changes will go into effect as of January 1st 2025. Let’s go over some of the details.

1. A brief explainer: how does elite status qualification work at Alaska?
2. Award redemptions on Alaska and its partners will earn EQMs
3. Alaska will soon roll out multi-carrier redemptions.
4. Partner flights booked through Alaska Airlines will always earn at least 100% of the miles flown
5. Spending on the Alaska credit card will earn EQMs
6. Earn EQMs with everyday travel partners
7. EQMs will allow some rollover
8. Alaska introduces ‘milestone moments’
9. Summary

A brief explainer: how does elite status qualification work at Alaska?

For those that don’t know, Alaska’s frequent flyer program is called MileagePlan. Within this program you can earn miles like with any other airline, but not all of these miles will qualify for acquiring status with Alaska. Specifically, only the so-called elite-qualifying miles (EQM) will count toward elite status with Alaska, at the following amounts:

• MVP, at 20,000 EQM
• MVP Gold, at 40,000 EQM
• MVP Gold 75k, at 75,000 EQM
• MVP Gold 100k, at 100,000 EQM

Qualifying for these status tiers will grant you increasingly beneficial perks, such as free pieces of checked luggage, priority boarding and space-available upgrades. On top of that, these four tiers also lineup with the elite status tiers of the OneWorld alliance, which Alaska is a member of. MVP will grant you OneWorld Ruby, MVP Gold will get you OneWorld Sapphire, and MVP Gold will get you the highest OneWorld tier: Emerald. These tiers are valuable as they come with access to all OneWorld partner’s lounges, for example.

If you are located in a city where Alaska has a big network, such as Seattle, Portland, San Francisco or Los Angelos, it could be worthwhile going for Alaska elite status. Now, some enhancements are coming that may make it worthwhile to go for this even if you don’t live in a city with a particularly attractive Alaska connectivity, such as Boston, New York or Washington.

As of today, the above information on how and for what you qualify still stands. As Alaska Airlines describes it, there will be new ways in which you can earn EQMs, and some enhancements will be rolled out to how miles are earned and redeemed. Here’s what Brett Catlin, Vice President of Loyalty, Alliances and Sales, had to say about it:

We’re on a multi-year journey to make the industry’s most generous loyalty program even more rewarding. In 2025, Mileage Plan members will have access to all-new, more frequent perks along with expanded ways to earn elite status, including on award travel. As we invest in a single loyalty platform with Hawaiian Airlines, there is even more to come later in the year.

Award redemptions on Alaska and its partners will earn EQMs

As of January 1st 2025, Alaska will allow you to earn EQM on flights booked using MileagePlan award redemptions, both on its own jets as well as those of partners. This is a pretty awesome perk. Most airlines restrict earning status qualifiers (points, miles, or whatever the airline might call it) to flights that are paid for with cash, and/or are flown on their own aircraft. For example, United requires that you fly at least four legs on United-operated flights in order to qualify for their first elite tier, Premier Silver. In contrast, with Alaska, if you book a reward flight through Alaska’s MileagePlan program for a JAL flight from NYC to Tokyo, you can earn EQM on that equivalent to the distance flown.

This is probably the most exciting change of all of those announced today, and can make it a lot easier to qualify for status, even if you are located in a city without a broad Alaska network.

Alaska will soon roll out multi-carrier redemptions.

For the longest time award redemptions with Alaska were limited to flight that were operated by a single carrier, or by a combination of a partner with an Alaska flight. For example, flying with Alaska from NYC to Los Angeles, and then JAL from there to Tokyo. You could not, for example, book an award flight that combined a flight on American from NYC to Dallas, and then JAL from Dallas to Tokyo. You’d maybe want to do this if you’d want to fly JAL’s new A350 business class, but can’t find availability out of New York. Unfortunately, since Alaska doesn’t fly to Dallas from New York, you wouldn’t be able to book this. But this is about to change!

This winter, Alaska will allow multi-carrier redemptions, meaning you can book award flights that combine more than one Alaska partner on the same itinerary. This is exciting, because under the old limitations it could be hard to find availability on some routings, especially those that are more competitive. Either this limitation gone, a new array of potential redemptions should become available, offering more choice to find suitable routings.

I expect this to be specially useful for those of us that reside on the east coast and want to fly out west, across the pacific. Primarily because Alaska only flies to its west coast hubs from the east coast, and not to American Airlines hubs, its primary US domestic alliance partner. As such, non-west coast airports that would be serviced by international OneWorld member airlines across the pacific (e.g. JAL and Cathay Pacific), or even third-party Alaska partners, can’t be reached on Alaska Airlines from the east coast.

So, this should be an exciting change that will open up additional possibilities. However, it’s not clear how redemption rates will be for such multi-carrier redemptions. Since Alaska does have a published award chart that was updated earlier this year, my guess is that rates will stick to those rates. We will have to wait and see how this evolves.

Partner flights booked through Alaska Airlines will always earn at least 100% of the miles flown

This may be another interesting change, I think. When you look over the mileage earning charts of airlines, you will typically find that miles earned on a flight will range from 0% to 200% of miles flown. Typically, basic economy gets you little or nothing (0%) and first class may earn you 150-200%, depending on the airlines specific policies.

Well, Alaska will simplify its earning structure, for flights booked directly with Alaska airlines on partners. This is key, because of you did not book directly through Alaska, a different chart may apply. Right now, the difference is whether a flight is Alaska marketed, and so this will change into a system where the only thing that matters is where you booked the flight. If you booked through Alaska, here’s what you can look forward to:

• Economy: 100% of miles flown
• Premium economy: 150% of miles flown
• Business: 250% of miles flown
• International first: up to 350% of miles flown.

See below for the full earning chart for partner flights booked through Alaska:

Those are some very high amounts, that can really move the needle on how quickly you can earn redemptions. Note however that this will be just on partner flights booked through Alaska. If you fly on Alaska Airlines, these are the percentages:

As you can see, that is significantly lower and much more in line with what we come to expect from mileage earning in the different fare classes. The implicaiton may be that if you did not booked your flight through Alaska, mileage eanring may in fact go down, so on balance this may not be the best of perks, depending on how you book your flights. This may be a reason to book it through Alaska…

Spending on the Alaska credit card will earn EQMs

More and more airlines are going this route, with American having perhaps been one of the first in the US. Essentially, having the Alaska credit card will net you 1 EQM for every $3 spent on the card, up to a maximum of 30,000 EQM earned through spending. So for that you would need to spent 90,000$.

I personally do have the Alaska credit card but don’t find it rewarding enough for day-to-day use. It eats 3x miles on purchases with Alaska airlines, 2x miles for local transit, and 1x on everything else, so it should be clear that there are many other cards that are much more rewarding for day-to-day use. That said, you may end up wanting to use the card for your Alaska Airlines purchases given that it will net you those EQMs plus the 3x ‘usual’ miles. Ik such a case it may be rewarding to do so.

Interested in this card and the perks it can offer? Apply here!

Earn EQMs with everyday travel partners

Airlines have many partners in al lsorts of industries, but earning with those does not always translate into airline status. Alaska will introduce this for MileagePlan, at a rate of 1000 EQMs for every 3000 miles earned with other travel partners.

There are some very interesting possibilities here! Alaska straight-up mentions Lyft, for example. Another intriguing possibility is through Bilt: Link your Alaska credit card to your Bilt rewards account and use it to pay rent. This will earn you 3x miles per 1$ spent, and could really supercharge your EQM earnings!

EQMs will allow some rollover

Some airline programs allow you to rollover miles if you have more than needed to qualify for a tier, but not enough to qualify for the next one. Alaska will introduce this as well, but only once you hit 85,000 miles – then you can rollover 10,000.

Alaska introduces ‘milestone moments’

Many airlines have introduced the option to choose certain perks once you hit certain earning milestones. Alaska will be offering this as well. The benefit of this approach is that individual passengers can pick the perks that are most interesting to them – after all, not everybody has the same priorities, and some may appreciate one thing when somebody else might appreciate another. These perks have increasing value the higher the tier that you hit. And in Alaska’s case, there will be several, as you can see in the graphic below.

The perks can be chosen at the 10k, 30k, 55k, 85k, 250k, 200k and 250k tiers, so not at the traditional MVP+ elite status qualifixaiton tiers. At this point you anyway get certain perks, so there wouldn’t be any extra to choose. Here;s how Alaska describes it:

We’re making some adjustments on your path to elite status by introducing selectable rewards at different points in your journey—so you can choose the perks that matter most to you along the way.

So, my interpretation is that they want to make it attractive for you to keep trying to qualify for the next tier but adding some ‘carrots’, so to speak. What, then, do these perks actually look like? As an example, at the 10,000 EQM tier you can choose one of the following perks:

• 750 bonus miles
• Pre-order a complimentary meal for your flight
• One (1) complimentary Wi-Fi pass
• Try MVP status for a trip
• Earn double miles with non-air partners
• Upgrade your next Avis rental

While at the 55,000 EQM tier you can pick two of the following perks:

• 5,000 bonus miles
• 10,000 miles off an Extras redemption
• Gift MVP for a trip
• One (1) complimentary Lounge day pass
• Two (2) upgrade certificates

Summary

Alaska Airlines has today announced a slew of changes to their MileagePlan frequent flyer program. On balance, I find these to be overall rather positive. The most exciting developments certainly are the possibility to earn EQMs from mileage redemptions on both Alaska and partner flights, as long as they are redeemed using MileagePlan miles, as well as the possibility to redeem for multi-carrier itineraries. Changes in mileage earning on partners seems generally positive as well, and it’s ncei to see all the additional ways to earn EQMs.

What do you make of these changes? Will you try to qualify for Alaska status? Let me know in the comments!