Photo credit: Travel Weekly
After a major devaluation a couple weeks ago, mile chasers out of Singapore are facing another huge one. This one does offer a 2 months notice though.
Alaska Airlines used to offer 100% accrual on all Qantas Economy flights, regardless of fare class. From 1 January 2020, this will drop to 25% for all decently priced tickets. This is especially painful for me as I used to be able to fly in Economy to the west coast of USA for about $1,000 and receive about 46,000 Alaska miles (worth $1,070) in return as an Alaska Gold member with 200% accrual. I could even spend a few days in Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane before/after visiting Los Angeles/San Francisco. That was almost like flying for free!
Qantas has also been the best way to fly to Australia, New Zealand and London in Economy with this extremely generous accrual with Alaska.
New and old earning charts with Alaska, on Qantas
Conclusion
While this is not an award chart devaluation, earning Alaska miles out of Singapore is going to get much harder. For me, there is only one value-for-money way to fly to USA left. That is in Premium Economy on Singapore Airlines for around $1,300 which still gives you 100% on Alaska’s Mileage Plan as a basic member. I have re-evaluated my Alaska miles and will now drop its valuation to $0.022. This is a massive 21% drop, down from $0.028 only two weeks ago. Painful.
