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I am thinking about taking a business class Emirates flight and have questions for the points/miles churners out there....
If I book a business class Emirates flight on the Alaska Airlines site, would it be eligible for an upgrade with Emirates miles? I tried selecting a flight on the Alaska Air site and was totally unable to tell the type of business seat I would be getting. I understand certain Emirates seats can be upgraded and others cannot.
Another naïve question...if I book an Emirates flight on the Alaska Air site, will the booking show up through the Emirates site since my Emirates FF# would be associated with the booked flight?
I have some Alaska Airlines points which is why I wanted to book through them. But I also have some AmEx points I have been saving that I "may" use to upgrade one leg of the flight.
Well, first off, you can't book Emirates flights on Alaskan's site for revenue flights. If you want to book Emirates, go to their site, and see if you can get your business class with points/miles. Availability can be challenging at times.
To use Alaska miles, you're looking at 82,500 each way in business on EK.
Well, first off, you can't book Emirates flights on Alaskan's site for revenue flights. If you want to book Emirates, go to their site, and see if you can get your business class with points/miles. Availability can be challenging at times.
To use Alaska miles, you're looking at 82,500 each way in business on EK.
I'm sorry. I'm not understanding. Maybe I don't get what you mean by the "for revenue" part.
Alaska Airlines and Emirates are partners. If you go onto the Alaska Airlines site, you can use Alaska Airlines miles to purchase a ticket on Emirates from the US to Dubai. It's 42.5K miles one way for Economy versus 82.5K miles one way for business and 150k miles one way for first last time I checked last week.
Right. So you can use Alaskan points for reward purchases. For revenue means money. You can't buy an EK ticket with money through the Alaskan site, only by using Alaskan points. What do you mean by what kind of business class seat? There's only one business class. Seating style may be dependent on aircraft, but there's not subdivisions within the class. Reward flights generally can't be upgraded further. Also your FF# is really irrelevant, as reward redemptions are non-rev, and earn no points.
It sounds like you want to use Alaska miles to book a seat on an Emirates flight, then use Emirates miles to upgrade to a higher class of service. If that's what you want to do, then the answer is NO, you can't use one airline's miles to upgrade a seat secured with another airline's miles. If you want to ride in a premium cabin using miles, then you need to use one airline's mileage program. In this case it sounds like you'd have to use Alaska's. You can't combine miles from two programs into one flight.
Right. So you can use Alaskan points for reward purchases. For revenue means money. You can't buy an EK ticket with money through the Alaskan site, only by using Alaskan points.
Correct. I know and should have specified that in my original post as I was not clear that my plan was to purchase an Emirates flight using Alaska miles on Alaska airlines.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeyyc
What do you mean by what kind of business class seat? There's only one business class. Seating style may be dependent on aircraft, but there's not subdivisions within the class.
Because Emirates offers Saver, Flex and Flex Plus rewards, I was wondering if I use Alaska miles to buy an Emirates flight, is it a "Saver" ticket..? I'm assuming since I'd be using Alaska miles, it's none of the three. Meaning, if I had used Emirates miles and got a Saver business seat, I could have one stopover. But if I buy the business seat on Emirates via Alaska, I couldn't have a stopover as it wouldn't even fall within the "Saver" category? Does that make sense? Maybe I'm missing something and making this wayyyyyyy complicated.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeyyc
Reward flights generally can't be upgraded further.
Hhhmmm...I don't think I knew this. This is what I'm trying to do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeyyc
Also your FF# is really irrelevant, as reward redemptions are non-rev, and earn no points.
I know rewards flights don't earn points actually. However, originally I was wondering if my booking would show up in the Emirates system online when I log in there after booking through Alaska. I know this is unlikely but was curious. After I book through Alaska, if I call Emirates, Emirates will be able to confirm my booking information. So it's not far fetched maybe possibly it would show up under my Emirates account after I've booked the flight with Alaska? I was thinking my FF# might trigger the info being available in my Emirates account but on second thought that doesn't really make any sense. Still wondering however if after the booking is done if it will show up since Alaska and Emirates are partners and the information has to be linked somehow once the flight is arranged. I wanted to know this to see if I could then use Emirates points to upgrade the existing flight in the Emirates system. But even if the flight did show up in my Emirates account it wouldn't matter because you're saying I can't upgrade a reward flight anyway.
Anyways, I think I need to (1) purchase enough miles to buy outright an "already upgraded" ticket with Alaska airlines on Emirates and (2) use the miles in my Emirates account to purchase the leg of the flight I will not be upgrading. That way I can still use my Emirates points; it just won't be for the upgrade; I'd be using Alaska points for that. What I originally was going to do was buy a round trip ticket on Emirates through Alaska Airlines and subsequently upgrade one leg of the flight using Emirates miles.
Yes, I know, I sound like I'm smoking something over here with all of this and probably nothing I just said makes any sense. It gets complicated trying to in essence "combine points" from two carriers; in this case it means buying two one ways really I think.
*Lastly, Alaska Airlines has an up to 50% off sale on their miles right now.
It sounds like you want to use Alaska miles to book a seat on an Emirates flight, then use Emirates miles to upgrade to a higher class of service. If that's what you want to do, then the answer is NO, you can't use one airline's miles to upgrade a seat secured with another airline's miles. If you want to ride in a premium cabin using miles, then you need to use one airline's mileage program. In this case it sounds like you'd have to use Alaska's. You can't combine miles from two programs into one flight.
Yes you are absolutely correct in what I'm trying to do.
And the above poster mentioned I (generally) can't use miles to upgrade a flight purchased with miles actually... :/
It sounds like you want to use Alaska miles to book a seat on an Emirates flight, then use Emirates miles to upgrade to a higher class of service. If that's what you want to do, then the answer is NO, you can't use one airline's miles to upgrade a seat secured with another airline's miles. If you want to ride in a premium cabin using miles, then you need to use one airline's mileage program. In this case it sounds like you'd have to use Alaska's. You can't combine miles from two programs into one flight.
What Gardyloo said above.
Also, once you redeem a seat using miles, you can't upgrade it any further. The only way to upgrade a seat with miles is if you pay for the original seat with money, then use your miles to upgrade to business. So essentially you will need to pay for economy and then use your miles to upgrade to business.
Know that upgrading a seat with miles per my scenario above does not guarantee that you'll get the upgrade (the airlines will tell you that it's on available basis - they only have maybe 2 or 4 seats per flight available for upgrades, the rest they obviously prefer to sell it to paying customers). Depending on your FF status, the airlines may not even tell you whether you get the upgrade or not up to boarding time. They'll return your miles if you don't get the upgrade.
Because Emirates offers Saver, Flex and Flex Plus rewards, I was wondering if I use Alaska miles to buy an Emirates flight, is it a "Saver" ticket..? I'm assuming since I'd be using Alaska miles, it's none of the three. Meaning, if I had used Emirates miles and got a Saver business seat, I could have one stopover. But if I buy the business seat on Emirates via Alaska, I couldn't have a stopover as it wouldn't even fall within the "Saver" category? Does that make sense? Maybe I'm missing something and making this wayyyyyyy complicated.
Indeed you are making it too complicated. You are using Alaska miles so whether or not you are allowed a stopover solely depends on Alaska’s FF program rules when flying on partner airlines. What SQ offers to its own frequent fliers is completely irrelevant to you. These categories apply to people who will pay for their flight with SQ miles not Alaska miles.
If you want to use miles from the two programs you will need to have (at least) two separate tickets during your trip. Do not call them ‘legs’ or segments — they will be entirely independent from each other so the right word is ‘ticket’.
Indeed you are making it too complicated. You are using Alaska miles so whether or not you are allowed a stopover solely depends on Alaska’s FF program rules when flying on partner airlines. What SQ offers to its own frequent fliers is completely irrelevant to you. These categories apply to people who will pay for their flight with SQ miles not Alaska miles.
If you want to use miles from the two programs you will need to have (at least) two separate tickets during your trip. Do not call them ‘legs’ or segments — they will be entirely independent from each other so the right word is ‘ticket’.
Ok.
So I ended up purchasing and using Alaska Airlines miles to purchase two separate one-way Emirates tickets. One ticket is in Economy on Emirates from the US to Dubai. The second ticket is in a higher class from Dubai back to the US.
I needed to get a second flight between Dubai and another city so I had transferred my AmEx rewards to Emirates and used the Emirates miles to purchase the other flight which is a round-trip economy ticket. The round-trip ticket is for a flight that leaves out of Dubai 4 days after arriving in Dubai so no stopover concerns.
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