Alaska Airlines is one of the few US airlines that still do straight status matches for their mid-tier MVP Gold status. The main reason for me matching the United Airlines status that I have, is to get the 100% MV Gold redeemable bonus (RDM) for my Emirates flights. I would have earned the MVP Gold status anyway, but would have missed on the 100% RDM bonus during the qualification process.
Back in January, I wrote about the partnership that Alaska and Emirates had signed up, and the ability to earn elite qualifying miles on Emirates flights on Alaska’s Mileage Plan. There are number of other carriers with the same agreement.
Redeeming on Emirates is not possible at this time using miles from Alaska’s program. This function is available later this year. You can redeem Alaska Mileage Plan miles on number of partners of which many are Emirates’ competitors i.e. Air France and British Airways, however.
Personally, I don’t find any reason to keep collecting EQM’s and RDM’s on Emirates’ Skywards program beyond making the Gold status. The only reasonable use for Skywards miles are upgrades from economy to business or from business to first.
Even if you have no plans to set your foot on Alaska’s flight, like I don’t, it doesn’t make using their frequent flier program unwise. BTW there is absolutely nothing wrong with Alaska Airways. It is a thriving airline on the west coast of the United States. If you are flying up and down on the west coast, quite likely you will end up on Alaska’s plane at some point.
Here’s what you need to do to request a status match on Alaska’s program:
1. Have equivalent status to MVP Gold in competing program. MVP Gold requires 50K EQM.
2. Open an Alaska Mileage Plan account online
3. Send an email to elite.flyer@alaskaair.com & mileage.plan@alaskaair.com and attach:
- Copy of your frequent flyer card
- Copy of your driver’s license
- Copy of the online statement from competing airline
4. On the body of the email include your Alaska Mileage Plan number and request status match.
When I emailed the online statement from United, I first received an email that requested a copy of the frequent flier card and a driver’s license. For some reason I also received an email that request like this cannot be processed by email, and to contact the Mileage Plan by phone. But, this process can be done entire online as well.
After I had replied that I hadn’t received a current card from United yet, they have had quite a few issues sending them out, and included copies of my Continental and United cards from 2011 and detailed account statements from both airlines that showed all the activity, the status of my account was updated the following day to MVP Gold.
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Does an Alaskan Airlines status match get you any benefits on EK (Emirates) ?
You won’t get any elite benefits on EK being an AS elite unlike with Delta or AA. But, if you are paying for business or first on Emireates, there are very little benefits to credit to EK Skywards, especially if you have already have Gold status with them. This is the case with me. I credited to EK to the Gold with them and then started to credit to Alaska. If in first or business on a two class aircraft, I just have my AS on the PNR from the beginning. If in Y (haven’t flown EK in Y yet) or in business on three class aircraft, I have my EK FF on the PNR until the boarding for possible operationa; upgrades, and then switch to AS FF.