BA Executive Club Alternatives - Alaska Airlines
British Airways are not the only airline in the Oneworld Airline alliance...
A fact that many people don’t appreciate is there are three big airline alliances, Star Alliance, Oneworld and Skyteam and there is generally an awful lot of cooperation between the airlines in each of these alliances.
This includes loyalty schemes. One reason I loved the old BA scheme was because you got Oneworld status too when you qualified for BA status. Even with the old BA Executive Club scheme, if BA was not a member of Oneworld, then I would have been nowhere as attractive.
Oneworld status means that you get many of the same great privileges with every Oneworld airline, e.g. free seat choice, priority boarding, lounge access, etc.
One thing that comes out of BA making it much harder to qualify on their scheme is that suddenly every other Oneworld Airlines’s loyalty scheme could, in effect, give you very similar status on BA flights if you earn it instead of BA’s Club status.
The last video I did on my Tim Lewis TCF YouTube channel talked about why I’m looking with interest at Malaysia Airlines’s Enrich scheme:
BUT..this might not be the right choice for everyone. In fact, for some people, BA’s new scheme might be the best choice. Every airline in Oneworld has a scheme and some will be better for some people than others. A lot depends on how you travel and how much you spend on travel.
So, I am going to look at all the Oneworld schemes here - one at a time - and say who they best serve - entirely from a Oneworld status perspective (not discussing benefit points like Avios here)
Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan
Alaska Airlines has a mix of a distance flown and money spent on Credit Cards scheme for determining status. For someone based in the US who can get their Credit Card, it might be the best scheme to join. A few unique things about the scheme:
You get more Elite miles if you book a flight via Alaska Airlines’s website
You get miles based on redemption flights (though a reduced level)
You DO NOT get access to US lounges on domestic flights (Both American Airlines and Alaska charge fees for using their lounges domestically)
Here’s a link to their website page on how flight miles are granted Alaska Elite Qualifying miles
The amount of Elite Qualifying Miles you get is based on the distance of the flight times a multiplier based on the class of the flight and how you booked the flight (e.g. if you book through Alaska’s website you get a better multiplier)
You need to earn 40,000 qualifying miles to reach the equivalent of BA Silver status (Oneworld Sapphire) within a calendar year and 100,000 qualifying miles to reach the equivalent of BA Gold status (Oneworld Emerald).
There does not seem to be a requirement to fly on Alaska Airlines planes at all to earn status.
For those who have their Alaska Visa Card, they earn one (1) elite-qualifying mile for every $3 spent on purchases made with your card—up to 30,000 elite-qualifying miles.
So admittedly spending $90,000 on a Credit Card in a year might not be possible for many, but you would only need 10,000 Elite Qualifying Miles to qualify for Oneworld Sapphire status (something like a one-way flight from Philadelphia to Rome with American Airlines in business class booked via the Alaska website would earn this much: 4,357 miles times by 2.5 for international business class)
Who is this scheme good for?
The scheme is probably best for people who can earn miles on the Alaska Visa card but don’t fly primarily within the US (due to no domestic lounge access, though this might be outweighed by perks specific to Alaska flights).
People who fly a long distance internationally in business or first class for low prices will find this scheme good because it has relatively high multipliers by class.
People who fly short-haul a lot probably won’t find this scheme useful because there’s no bonus for how many times you fly, everything is based on distance and class of flight.
Why did I not pick this?
Honestly I didn’t really look into it too much and just assumed it wouldn’t work for me! I still think the Malaysia Enrich Scheme is better, but there is certainly potential for earning status on the Alaska scheme fairly easily (at least for Oneworld Sapphire).
The other issue is that to get the decent Elite miles bonus for higher classes you need to book the flights via the Alaska website, and I’ve heard this can be hard for some other airlines’s flights. No other airline (as far as I am aware - I’m sure I’ll find some as I do a deep-dive into the other schemes) does this. So while you might find an awesome ex-EU deal via Finland to Malaga, it might be almost impossible to book it on Alaska’s website.
The lack of access to US domestic lounges would also be an issue for me, but isn’t a deal breaker.
On the Malaysia Airlines Enrich scheme, the ratio between Sapphire and Emerald status is 60 to 100 elite points while on the Alaska scheme it is 40,000 to 100,000 miles, so it requires much more an extra boost to reach the highest status. Also there’s the biggest multipliers on the Alaska scheme come only for international flights, where the Malaysia Airlines Enrich doesn’t make this distinction.