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Today, Alaska Mileage Plan added new award redemptions on Malaysia Airlines. This marks the fifth partner award redemption addition since Alaska joined the Oneworld alliance almost a year ago — and Alaska still has a few more partners to add.
Let's dig into this new award redemption to see if it makes sense for when you need to fly Malaysia Airlines.
Alaska Mileage Plan Award Chart for Malaysia Airlines
You can now redeem Alaska Mileage Plan miles for Malaysia Airlines award flights between Asia and the following regions:
- Asia
- Europe
- Indian Subcontinent
- Middle East
- South Pacific
As you may have noticed, North America isn't listed. That's because Malaysia Airlines doesn't fly to North America. So, U.S.-based travelers will only find this new redemption option useful while traveling on Malaysia's route network.
Alaska is one of a few airlines that uses a different award chart for each partner airline. That means you can get incredible redemption rates on some partners — and poor redemption rates on other partners. Unfortunately, this new partner falls in the latter category.
Here are the one-way Mileage Plan redemption rates for Malaysia Airlines award flights:
| From | To | Economy | Business Class |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asia | Asia | 25,000+ | 65,000+ |
| Asia | Indian Subcontinent | 25,000 | 65,000 |
| Asia | Middle East | 40,000 | 120,000 |
| Asia | South Pacific | 40,000 | 120,000 |
| Asia | Europe | 50,000 | 175,000 |
Comparison to Other Airline Award Rates
Put bluntly: these new Alaska redemption rates are pretty miserable. For reference, American Airlines AAdvantage charges the following rates for Malaysia Airlines flights between Europe and Asia:
- 35,000 miles in economy
- 55,000 miles in premium economy
- 75,000 miles in business class
That means you can pay 150,000 AAdvantage miles roundtrip to fly Malaysia Airlines business class between London and Kuala Lumpur. But Alaska is now charging 175,000 miles one–way on the same route.
Award rates to the Middle East and South Pacific are similarly deficient.
| Program | Region 1 | Region 2 | Economy | Business |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAdvantage | Asia Region 2 | Middle East | 25,000 one-way | 40,000 one-way |
| Mileage Plan | Asia | Middle East | 40,000 one-way | 120,000 one-way |
| AAdvantage | Asia Region 2 | South Pacific | 30,000 one-way | 40,000 one-way |
| Mileage Plan | Asia | South Pacific | 40,000 one-way | 120,000 one-way |
And American Airlines isn't even the cheapest option. If you're flying roundtrip and have Japan Airlines Mileage Bank miles, you can pay just:
- 60,000 miles roundtrip to fly between Kuala Lumpur and Perth.
- 85,000 miles roundtrip to fly between Kuala Lumpur and the Middle East.
- 85,000 miles roundtrip to fly between Kuala Lumpur and Sydney.
- 100,000 miles roundtrip to fly between Kuala Lumpur and Auckland.
- 110,000 miles roundtrip to fly between Kuala Lumpur and London.
Alaska Mileage Plan's Very Eventful 2022
2022 has already been quite a busy year for the Alaska Mileage Plan program. Although Alaska joined the Oneworld alliance on March 31, 2021, it only added award redemptions on Qatar Airways in 2021.
However, today's addition is Alaska's fourth partner award redemption addition so far in 2022. The airline already has added redemption options for Iberia, Royal Air Maroc, and Royal Jordanian this year. While more redemption options are nice, award redemption rates have been disappointing in each case.
Rounding out the bad news: Alaska recently unveiled it would increase some first-class award rates in March 2022.
Alaska isn't done adding redemption options yet. Alaska still plans to add Mileage Plan award redemption on the following partner airlines in 2022: Ravn Alaska, S7 Airlines, and SriLankan Airlines. Hopefully, the redemption rates on these new partners will be better than what we've seen recently.
Bottom Line
Alaska is steadily adding new Mileage Plan redemptions on its new Oneworld partners. However, in each recent case, the award redemptions just aren't competitive. And that's the case again with Alaska's new redemption options on Malaysia Airlines.
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How much would I have to spend with AA to earn 75,000 Advantage miles as a non-Elite AAdvantage Member?
How much would I have to spend/fly as a MVPG100K to earn 175,000K Mileage Plan miles?
AA is revenue based, AS is distance based (granted quasi-revenue on partners) so comparing AAdvantage redemptions to Mileage Plan redemptions is like comparing Kiwi to kumquats. The currencies are different. You wouldn’t make comparisons on price if one was transacted in pounds & the other in US dollars. £8 is cheaper than USD $9, right?
AS Mileage Plan miles are very easy to accumulate from flying, AA not so much. For a real life example I flew 6 segments on AS and earned over 25K RDM on a $152 base fare. If I flew that itinerary on AA I would have earned 760 RDM.
I wouldn’t expect Mileage Plan redemptions to be “on par” with AAdvantage redemptions even if we discount the “free stopover” where AAdvantage would require an additional redemption.
James