Double Miles On Alaska's New Routes to New Orleans, Tampa, Detroit

Feb. 12, 2014

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3 min read

Double Miles On Alaska's New Routes to New Orleans, Tampa, Detroit

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Alaska has been really aggressive with double miles promos lately thanks to Delta's incursion into the Pacific Northwest, and when the airline announced three new destinations this week, it also said it would be offering flyers on these new routes double miles.

The new routes and dates of service are:

Seattle to New Orleans starting June 12, 2014
Seattle to Tampa starting June 20, 2014
Seattle to Detroit starting September 4, 2014

Here are the schedules:

Flyers on the routes to New Orleans and Tampa will earn double miles through August 15, 2014, while flyers between Seattle and Detroit will earn double miles and double elite-qualifying miles through October 31, 2014.

As Seattle becomes a hub for both Alaska (already a strong presence there) and Delta (operating more and more international flights and transcons out of here), the battle for high-value customers is on, and these new, very specific routes, are just another example of how flyers can benefit from inter-airline competition. For my part, Alaska has been looking like a more and more attractive option and I am thinking about switching my elite status allegiance to Alaska instead of Delta in 2014 because of significant changes to Delta’s program including two major mileage devaluations and the implementation of new elite revenue requirements, which make Alaska look like a much better option – especially considering it is partners with both Delta and American, and its elite flyers earn benefits on both.

Alaska has a ton of other great partners as well, and you can now earn elite-qualifying miles on all its partners including American, Delta, British Airways, Air France, Cathay Pacific and Emirates among others. Alaska also recently added Emirates as an award redemption partner, so you can now put your Alaska miles to use on one of the world’s top airlines, as I recently did in November to fly Emirates’ A380 First Class Suite.

While this won't change my personal flying behavior because they're not routes I'm going to be spending much time on, this is still another good way for Pacific Northwest flyers to rack up bonus miles and even EQM's if you're back and forth to Detroit. I'd love to see some competition in other hubs - maybe Chicago for United and American, or JFK for the three major legacies so that the rest of us flyers can reap the benefits of more double miles promos.
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