Alaska Airlines and Emirates are ending their partnership on July 31
Today, Alaska Airlines announced that it’s cutting partner ties with Emirates. As of July 31, 2021, you’ll no longer be able to earn or redeem Mileage Plan miles on Emirates flights.
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This announcement comes roughly two months after Alaska Airlines officially joined the Oneworld alliance. When Alaska originally announced plans to join the alliance, the airlines said it was planning to maintain its relationships with unaligned partners like Emirates.
That’s no longer the case. Per a message on Alaska’s website:
Our partnership with Emirates will end on July 31, 2021. Mileage Plan members can continue to earn and redeem* miles on oneworld® member airlines and our Global Partners to more than 1,000 destinations on 20+ airlines worldwide. For travel to India, the Middle East or Africa, guests can fly Qatar Airways in unparalleled comfort with their revolutionary Qsuite, the most private Business Class in the sky.
In addition to losing the ability to earn and redeem miles, Alaska and Emirates elites will lose reciprocal lounge access.
Although Alaska is now a part of Oneworld, it’s not yet possible to redeem Mileage Plan miles on all partners, including Qatar. So far, we know that Oneworld alliance-wide redemptions are going live in the summer. This move might suggest that Aug. 1 is the date that you’ll be able to redeem miles across all alliance partners.
Video: Alaska Airlines CEO on the future of travel (NBC News)
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This April, Emirates began limiting first-class awards to some partners, including Alaska. It may have been in anticipation of today’s announcement.
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Bottom line
Overall this is disappointing news for Alaska Mileage Plan members, as it means one less way to redeem your miles. On the bright side, members are being given plenty of notice and can still book awards beyond July 31 — they just won’t be changeable past that date.
Alternately, the Emirates Skywards program is still a solid option for booking Emirates awards since it no longer tacks on the massive fuel surcharges. Another perk of Skywards is that, unlike Alaska, it’s a transfer partner of all the major flexible points programs: Chase Ultimate Rewards, Amex Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou Rewards and Capital One Venture miles.
Alaska hasn’t announced any changes to other non-Oneworld partners like El Al, Icelandair and Singapore Airlines.
We’ll continue to update this developing story. Check back for more.
Featured photo by Zach Griff/The Points Guy
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