Alaska Airlines Elites To No Longer Get American Airlines Confirmed Upgrades, As American’s Seattle Plans Fade
Alaska Airlines MVP Gold 75K and 100K elite members have had the opportunity to confirm upgrades at time of booking on American Airlines long haul international flights, just like American Airlines Platinum Pro and Executive Platinum members can select systemwide upgrades as a choice benefit.
These confirmed upgrades on American for Alaska Airlines elites go away next year.
We’re committed to continually improving your experience. Based on guest feedback, we’ll be sunsetting American Airlines systemwide upgrade vouchers beginning in 2025. We’re continuing to invest in other ways to provide improved access to and utility of your Alaska Air upgrade benefits.
American Airlines Boeing 787-9 Super Diamond Business Class
This is a loss for Alaska elites, but makes sense as the partnership between American Airlines and Alaska hasn’t evolved the way it was expected when the two had a rapprochement four years ago. American Airlines has shifted its strategy since then, and the two airlines continue building their close domestic relationship more than their international one.
The American-Alaska International Partnership Hasn’t Worked Out
Just as the pandemic was starting, American Airlines inked its West Coast Alliance with Alaska Airlines. This was supposed to support American’s international flying.
- After Alaska acquired Virgin America, American saw them as more of a competitor than partner. They had a change of heart. They were bleeding on Pacific routes from Los Angeles. (They’ve since given up on LAX as a Pacific hub, opting to fly long haul only to joint venture partner hubs from LA.) They saw an opportunity to shift their West Coast long haul to Seattle.
- Alaska for its part eyed joining oneworld. They didn’t want a weaker partnership with American. They want international partnerships especially, in order to sell customers more than just their own domestic network. Delta had encroached upon Seattle and had the ability to sell both. Notably, Alaska’s deal to acquire Hawaiian brings with it Pacific routes.
However the pandemic came. Asia flying was slower to recover. Russia invaded Ukraine, which eliminated the ability of U.S. airlines to overfly Russia making many flights longer and more expensive to operate.
American’s Strategy Shifts To Domestic
American had planned to fly Seattle to Bangalore and to Shanghai. Neither flight materialized. American isn’t even flying Seattle – London anymore. They aren’t operating long haul at all from Seattle. So it’s been a question mark whether Seattle would actually be a long haul city for American at all – whether their ‘L.A. replacement’ wasn’t one after all, and the airline would just shrink in the Pacific.
- American Airlines is weak in the Northeast. They addressed that by partnering with JetBlue, but the Department of Justice blocked that.
- American Airlines is weak in the Bay Area and Pacific Northwest. They addressed that by partnering with Alaska. Alaska would handle the domestic connecting traffic, while American would fly long haul – giving American a replacement for LAX Pacific flying where they were losing money and giving Alaska a greater ability to see long haul flights. But American’s strategy has backed away from flying long haul on its own aircraft, outside of to the hubs of its joint venture partners.
- But these are crucial spending markets, necessary for success with AAdvantage and their co-brand credit card. American was growing its program in both regions through these partnerships. So backing away makes American less relevant to those who would put spend on the product that drives most of their profit.
American Airlines Planned New Business Class Comes Later This Year, Credit: American
American Airlines sees its future in what they believe is a neglected domestic opportunity in Sun Belt flying. They don’t have the same appetite to grow internationally that their main U.S. legacy carrier rivals do. And that means treating Alaska Airlines elites ‘the same’ on long haul flights presumably out of Seattle doesn’t make sense to invest in the way they’d thought.
Alaska Elites May See Long Haul Upgrades Elsewhere
For Alaska Airlines customers, award travel on their newest partners has gotten less expensive under the airline’s new award chart. And the hope for long haul upgrades may come from Alaska’s deal to acquire Hawaiian Airlines, which operates to numerous Pacific destinations from Japan to Tahiti to Australia.
If the deal makes it through anti-trust, it will make Hawaiian miles more valuable, and give Alaska members a big opportunity across the Pacific.
(HT: Chris H)
