Qantas Fixes Alaska Airlines Classic Reward Pricing

Matt Graham
Alaska Airlines domestic First Class
Alaska Airlines domestic First Class. Photo: Alaska Airlines.

Qantas has finally fixed an error with the way its website prices Classic Flight Rewards on Alaska Airlines after more than a year.

Last month, Australian Frequent Flyer highlighted a glitch with the Qantas website where Business Classic Reward seats on Alaska Airlines were being incorrectly priced at the higher “First Class” level. The Qantas website even warned users that the flight “will be in Business”, while charging for a First Class ticket.

Alaska Airlines Classic Reward on the Qantas website
The Qantas website was pricing Alaska Airlines Business reward seats at the First level for over a year.

The error was likely caused by the fact that Alaska Airlines markets its domestic premium cabin as “First Class”, although for all intents and purposes it’s a Business Class product. Qantas Frequent Flyer already knew this as it has been issuing Qantas Frequent Flyer points & status credits for Alaska Airlines domestic First Class flights at the lower “Business” level ever since Alaska Airlines joined Oneworld in March 2021.

American Airlines also markets its premium cabin on two-class domestic flights as “First”. The Qantas website correctly prices these reward seats at the Business level.

Alaska Airlines reward seats are now priced correctly

The good news is that this error was fixed earlier this month. The Qantas website now correctly displays Alaska Airlines premium reward seats as “Business”.

The Qantas website now shows Alaska Airlines awards as Economy & Business
The Qantas website now shows Alaska Airlines awards as Economy & Business.

These seats are also now once again being priced correctly, with Business Class points applied.

Qantas reward booking quote for PDX-ANC on AS
Classic Rewards on Alaska Airlines are now being priced correctly by the Qantas website.

This is especially good news for Qantas Frequent Flyer members who wish to book a Oneworld Classic Flight Reward in Business Class. Before this change, adding even just a single Alaska Airlines Business flight to the booking would re-price the entire multi-city itinerary at the First Class level – costing an extra 137,000 Qantas points per passenger!

Now, Alaska Airlines Business flights can once again be used without messing up the rest of the Qantas points booking. This opens up more flight options for frequent flyers booking Oneworld Classic Flight Rewards.

 

Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: QFF pricing Alaska Airlines Business flights as First Class

Matt Graham
The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include aviation, economics & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.
Matt Graham
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M MEL_Traveller Oct 06, 2021 #1

Alaska awards aren't showing correctly on the QF site. In the many searches I've undertaken in the past few days, when AS availability in a premium cabin does show, it comes with "!". For example, this flight from PDX to DAL, a direct flight on AS at 1616 miles shows availability in F but 'Your flight from PDX to DAL will be in business'. It's a single flight. Why is it showing availability in the F column if there's only availability in J? What's worse, it's charging 64.5K - the F price, despite being a J seat.

Two other points. First, shouldn't the AS logo now be next to AS flights, rather than the non-partner green square? Second, aren't DFW and DAL two entirely different airports? How is it possible to fly from PDX to both DFW and DAL?

Looks like some sort of coding error mapping across US domestic First class as 'true' first rather than the (now standard) business class on two-cabin flights.

The green square may not necessarily be a non-partner airline - it could be just to indicate a partner airline in general. Looking at similar flights connecting elsewhere in the USA all AA's regional partners (Republic, Skywest, Envoy, etc) all have the green square rather than the AA logo.

AS (partners) do indeed fly from PDX to both DFW and DAL. In fact on a random date in March 2022 their flights from PDX to DAL and DFW both leave at 7am! (bet you there's a bit of confusion there sometimes!)

Again, in line with other flights showing on Qantas, the name of the city comes first and any specific airport comes next. So flights to New York show as New York (La Guardia), New York (Newark), or NEW York (JFK). Same here where Dallas Fort Worth is actually the city, not the airport, followed by the specific airport (Love Field).

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f farstar Oct 21, 2021 #2

I assume you earn SC with Alaska as the page on the QANTAS website for Alaska says you do but the QANTAS Partner Earn catagory page says
"Qantas Points are earned on all eligible booking classes, except Alaska Airlines codeshare flights operated by an airline other than Qantas or a oneworld member airline."

And all other Oneworld airlines say points and SC.

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justinbrett Nov 04, 2021 #3

@Admin Now that AS is oneworld - any chance of giving them a dedicated forum?

I was going to ask - has anyone flown AS domestic first? Wondering how they compare with AA (ie 737 product - not talking about actual first class).

I've flown them in Y on an AA codeshare and thought they were fine - noticed their F product is sometimes cheaper than AA on some routes.

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drron Nov 04, 2021 #4

AS F is very similiar to AA at least pre covid.We have done a few trips in their F but all AA codeshares.

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M MEL_Traveller Nov 04, 2021 #5

@Admin Now that AS is oneworld - any chance of giving them a dedicated forum?

I was going to ask - has anyone flown AS domestic first? Wondering how they compare with AA (ie 737 product - not talking about actual first class).

I've flown them in Y on an AA codeshare and thought they were fine - noticed their F product is sometimes cheaper than AA on some routes.

The 737 is the 737 - but in terms of first class AS has the biggest seat pitch of any of the US majors at 41 inches standard (about 4 inches more than AA)*. For those without status, AS F comes with lounge access 🙂

*ie for narrow body, non-premium aircraft (excludes AA's flagship 3-class narrow bodies, or narrow bodies fitted with international product)

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justinbrett Nov 04, 2021 #6

The 737 is the 737 - but in terms of first class AS has the biggest seat pitch of any of the US majors at 41 inches standard (about 4 inches more than AA)*. For those without status, AS F comes with lounge access 🙂

*ie for narrow body, non-premium aircraft (excludes AA's flagship 3-class narrow bodies, or narrow bodies fitted with international product)

I was thinking more about their soft product. I assumed the hard product would be much the same overall - noting the AA 737 product is not as good as the AA A321 product - so assume it's more to do with aircraft type rather than airline.

I actually quite like the domestic AA F service. As long as you preorder your meal it's pretty good, especially considering how reasonably priced it is.

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M MEL_Traveller Nov 04, 2021 #7

I was thinking more about their soft product. I assumed the hard product would be much the same overall - noting the AA 737 product is not as good as the AA A321 product - so assume it's more to do with aircraft type rather than airline.

I actually quite like the domestic AA F service. As long as you preorder your meal it's pretty good, especially considering how reasonably priced it is.

Same same pre-order on Alaska. Hard product is the relatively the same in terms of the physical seat, but the pitch is the noticeable (positive) difference.

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justinbrett Nov 04, 2021 #8

Same same pre-order on Alaska. Hard product is the relatively the same in terms of the physical seat, but the pitch is the noticeable (positive) difference.

Thanks for the tip - I was also concerned that the SC earn rate might be lower for AS since they are not in the JV, but seems there is no difference. So really no impediment to flying AS over AA.

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Revenge Nov 04, 2021 #9

I know that for a while there the AS hard product depended whether you were on a legacy AS plane or if you were on a Virgin America plane that had become part of AS with the AS purchase of Virgin America. I am not sure if they've now standardised the fleet.

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M MEL_Traveller Nov 04, 2021 #10

I know that for a while there the AS hard product depended whether you were on a legacy AS plane or if you were on a Virgin America plane that had become part of AS with the AS purchase of Virgin America. I am not sure if they've now standardised the fleet.

I think I'd read they'd all gone. That product was even better!

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