Alaska Mileage Plan Going Revenue Based?
Is the end near? Is Alaska Mileage Plan going Revenue Based? The answer for now, it appears, is “no”.
An astute FlyerTalk member found buried in an article by the Juneau Empire this juicy piece of info from Joseph Sprague, Senior Vice President, Communications and External Relations:
Sprague also announced Thursday that Alaska Airlines will transition from a miles-based rewards program to a points-based alternative, in which points are awarded based on the cost of plane tickets rather than the distance of the trip.
This is a bit of a bombshell to be announced at the Juneau Chamber of Commerce meeting.
So I reached out to Alaska Airlines PR team and immediately got this response (written exactly as I received the email, including their own bolding and capitalization):
This is absolutely INCORRECT. We’ve contacted the reporter and editor and have asked for an immediate correction.
Glad to hear the resounding “INCORRECT” from the PR team, hopefully everyone at Alaska knows how terrible of a decision that would be.
UPDATE: I was contacted by an editor of the Juneau Empire. Here is what he had to say:
This has been fixed online. It ran correctly in print but there was an attempt to fix a grammatical issue online and “not” was deleted. Thanks for letting us know.
Charles—
Charles L. Westmoreland
Director of Audience / Editor, The Juneau Empire
The article linked above has been corrected. It now reads:
Sprague also announced Thursday that Alaska Airlines will not transition from a miles-based rewards program to a points-based alternative, in which points are awarded based on the cost of plane tickets rather than the distance of the trip.