Alaska dynamic pricing for American awards now live; expect cheaper short-haul awards

Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan has undergone a series of changes over the last couple of months, including dropping a valuable non-alliance partner, reducing some earning rates, expanding dynamic award pricing and charging sky-high rates for its newest redemption partners. Most of these changes have been negative, but there's one change that might be better than expected.

The Seattle-based airline appears to have rolled out distance-based pricing for American Airlines-operated award flights in the continental U.S., Alaska and Canada. Historically, these flights have cost a flat rate of 12,500 miles in the main cabin and 25,000 in business class. However, we're now seeing short-haul routes cost fewer miles.

Travelers will save up to 40% when compared to the old award price on the shortest flights with this new award-pricing formula — let’s take a closer look.

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Alaska pricing American awards based on distance

On March 1, Alaska removed published caps for American Airlines award flights in the continental U.S., Alaska and Canada. According to the award chart, these awards should now start at 12,500 miles one-way in the main cabin and 25,000 in business class and then "vary depending on demand."

There haven't actually been any pricing changes yet, but based on this verbiage, it seemed that awards would only get more expensive. Fortunately, that's not the case.

Based on our searches, it appears that nonstop American-operated flights under 500 miles in distance (i.e., Boston to New York) now start at 7,500 miles in economy, flights between 501 and 650 miles in distance (i.e., Miami to Atlanta) at 10,000 miles and all other flights still at 12,500 miles.

Related: Alaska Mileage Plan is making major changes

As of now, it appears that all business- and first-class awards still cost 25,000 miles one-way, regardless of the distance.

In other words, flights have only gone down in price, though based on Alaska's ambiguous award chart, that can change down the line.

The new rates are live on Alaska's booking engine for travel starting May 9. Interestingly, Alaska hasn't officially updated its award chart yet, but TPG has reached out to the airline for comment and will update this post when we have more information.

Related: Your complete guide to earning and redeeming with Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan

Bottom line

Alaska Airlines has quietly introduced distance-based pricing for American Airlines award flights within the continental U.S., Alaska and Canada.

Right now, shorter flights have gotten substantially less expensive, while no flights have gone up in price. Of course, with no published price ceilings, this could change at any point.

This move more closely aligns Alaska's award rates with American AAdvantage's own award chart, which charges 7,500 miles for saver-level economy flights under 500 miles and 12,500 miles for all other flights within the continental U.S. and Canada. The distance-based pricing model is also similar to the one Alaska has for its own flights, though those rates are much more variable.

Overall, this is a welcome improvement for the time being, and couldn’t have come at a better time given the program's recent devaluations.