Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan & El Al Israel Airlines have just enhanced their pre-existing partnership and the program now allows mileage redemptions for select flights of the carrier.
Members can redeem Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles for awards from the U.S. to the Middle East and Europe (other routes are not available).
Route and regional restrictions for awards with their airline partners, and this is no exception as the option to redeem for El Al only seems to be available from North America to the Middle East and Europe (vice versa).
This means for example, that I couldn’t book Bangkok-Tel Aviv if I wanted to even when there are regular flights scheduled on a daily basis.
El Al and Alaska Mileage Plan had a partnership for quite some time, but so far, that only extended to earning miles, and now you suddenly have the option to redeem as well.
Mileage Plan hasn’t published any award chart at this point, strange enough. The awards just suddenly popped up on the website when searching:
To travel from New York JFK/EWR to Tel Aviv the following rates apply:
- Economy Class: 50,000 Miles one way
- Premium Economy: 80,000 Miles one way
- Business Class: 100,000 Miles one way
The additional surcharges are minimal, just the airport taxes and government fees but no fuel surcharges.
Here is how to earn miles on Mileage Plan with El Al:
The earning rates are actually quite attractive. There is also a reference to redeeming miles on the same page but as I mentioned before, no award charts or references to actual routes or awards.
Rates for redemptions aren’t exactly cheap but no surcharges mean that it’s still possible to have a worthwhile award if you generate Alaska miles cheaply enough.
Conclusion
Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan and El Al Israel Airlines have upgraded their frequent flyer partnership and now it’s possible to redeem Mileage Plan miles to book award tickets on El Al.
Availability was quite good whenever I looked but maybe that’s the case because it has just been opened, although I’d imagine that Alaska doesn’t use a separate/own award inventory for MP redemptions but that it’s based on what El Al makes available even to their own members.
Friends told me that tickets on El Al are usually quite expensive as demand is high but these days there are so many carriers that fly from the U.S. to Tel Aviv that it might have become more moderate. I was a little surprised by the high redemption rates.
