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Mileage Plan is in a state of flux right now as Alaska Airlines continues to make changes to its loyalty program. A series of changes to Mileage Plan were first announced in late 2023 and these started to come into effect from the beginning of 2024. Now, more of the promised tweaks are ready to be introduced and yet more new changes have been announced.
In brief
We already knew that in 2025 we’d see a negative change coming to Mileage Plan in the form of reduced mileage earnings for elite flyers. Today, Alaska Airlines has confirmed that these changes are still coming for the 2025 elite qualification year.
- MVP elites will earn 25% bonus miles (down from 50%)
- MVP Gold elites will earn 50% bonus miles (down from 100%)
- MVP Gold 75K elites will earn 100% bonus miles (down from 125%)
MVP 100K elites are the only ones avoiding this devaluation as they will, for now, continue to earn 150% bonus miles when crediting their flights to Mileage Plan.
We also knew that Alaska Airlines has plans to introduce the new ‘Milestone Rewards’ and today the airline finally confirmed what those rewards will look like and that they will kick in from the start of next year rather than at some point in 2024 (an article dedicated to these new rewards will follow).
What we didn’t know was on the way was …
- Alaska Airlines plans to offer Mileage Plan members more ways to earn Elite Qualifying Miles (EQM) starting in 2025.
- In November, Alaska Airlines will unveil a new travel program for Hawaii residents which will offer ‘exclusive discounts and benefits’
- Alaska Airlines plans to simplify the mileage and EQM earning rates for partner bookings with bookings made through its own portals offering stronger earnings than bookings made with partners.
- Upgrade priority will be changing at some point in 2025
For the time being, that seems to be all, but there’s every chance that further changes may be announced in the coming months.
More ways to earn Elite Qualifying Miles
The criteria for earning Mileage Plan elite status will not be changing, so for 2025, these will be the targets that flyers will have to hit in order to earn/retain status with Alaska Airlines:
- MVP status – earn 20,000 EQM
- MVP Gold status – earn 40,000 EQM
- MVP Gold 75K status – earn 75,000 EQM
- MVP Gold 100K status – earn 100,000 EQM
Elite Qualifying Miles (EQM) will also continue to be awarded based on the distance flown and the airline has resisted the temptation to include a minimum spending requirement.
From 1 January 2025, however, there will be more ways to earn the EQM needed to earn/retain elite status:
Earn EQM from award travel
From next year, all Alaska Airlines flights booked with Mileage Plan Miles will earn EQM in the same way as a regular cash fare (i.e. based on the distance traveled).
In addition, Mileage Plan award bookings made on partner airlines (American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Hawaiian Airlines, etc…) will also earn EQM in the same way as a regular cash fare.
Note that only awards booked using Mileage Plan miles will be eligible for EQM, so you won’t be able to book a flight with Avios, for example, and then earn Mileage Plan elite status credit from that flight.
Earn EQM from credit card spending
From the beginning of 2025, primary holders of the Alaska Airlines Visa Signature® credit card and the Alaska Airlines Visa® Business card will earn 1 EQM for every $3 in qualifying spending made on these cards up to a maximum of 30,000 EQM.
Note: This is a change from the policy in 2024 which allowed cardholders to earn 4,000 EQM for every $10,000 of eligible spending that they put on their card up to a cap of 20,000 EQM.
Returns, credits and adjustments to this card will be deducted from any spending when calculating the number of EQM that should be awarded, and cash advances and balance transfers will not be considered to be qualifying purchases.
A Mileage Plan member will only be able to earn a maximum of 30,000 EQMs this way even if they hold multiple Alaska Airlines Visa cards.
EQMs earned will calculated at the beginning of each month for the prior months posted net purchases and will appear in the appropriate Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan account within 4-6 weeks.
Earn EQM from spending with Mileage Plan non-airline partners
Staring on 1 January 2025, Mileage Plan members will earn 1,000 Elite Qualifying Miles for every 3,000 miles earned through spending made with select Mileage Plan non-airline partners.
At the time of writing, Alaska Airlines says that miles earned across from spending with hotel, cruise, car rental, and rideshare partners as well as miles earned through shopping portals will count towards EQM earnings.
Any miles earned through Alaska’s transfer partners (e.g. Bilt and hotel partner transfers) will not count towards EQM earnings.
Likewise, any miles that are purchased, gifted, or transferred in from other accounts will not be eligible to earn EQM.
Choose to roll over EQM as a milestone choice
We’ll supply more details of this option in the article discussing the milestone benefits, but for now, suffice it to say that one of the milestone benefit options that will be available to Mileage Plan members earning 85,000 EQM will be the ability to roll over 10,000 EQM to the following elite qualification year.
Partner earning rates are changing
In 2025, all partner bookings credited to Mileage Plan will continue to earn EQM based on the distance traveled, but the EQM and mileage earning rates for partner bookings will be changing … for better and for worse.
As things stand, Mileage Plan offers different earning rates for different partner airlines and there’s also a difference between the earning rates for flights booked through Alaska Airlines and bookings made through partners.
Going forward, all partner bookings made through Alaska Airlines will earn miles and EQM at the same rates and all partner bookings made directly with partners will earn miles and EQM at the same rates, but the rates for bookings made through Alaska Airlines will be noticeably better.
You’ll find all the new earnings charts on this page, but this is what we think they will look like:
*See discussion below.
While Alaska has published an earnings rate for partner domestic First Class bookings made through its own portals, it doesn’t seem to have published a comparable figure for domestic First Class bookings made through partner airlines.
It’s very possible that Hawaiian Airlines will no longer be treated as a partner airline (as it’s now owned by Alaska Airlines), but that still leaves us without a figure for the earnings rates on domestic First Class American Airlines bookings made directly with American and credited to Mileage Plan.
Given that most American Airlines domestic First Class bookings use the same fare codes as international Business Class, it’s probably safe to assume that such bookings will earn miles and EQM at a rate of 125% of the distance flown.
For flights where American Airlines sells three cabins (e.g. on select routes between the coasts), it’s likely that standard international earnings rates for First and Business Class will apply.
It’s important to note that these new earnings rates apply to all partner bookings made on or after 16 October 2024 that cover travel from 1 January 2025 onwards.
Mileage Plan members who have partner bookings that were made before 16 October 2024 and which are for travel in 2025 will earn miles and EQM according to the charts as they were when the bookings were made.
What all of this ‘simplification’ boils down to is this:
While partner flight bookings made through Alaska Airlines will earn more miles and EQM going forward, partner flight bookings made directly with the partner airline will earn fewer miles and fewer EQM than they do right now (in most cases).
Related: Alaska Airlines miles on sale with a mystery bonus [Targeted]
Changes coming to upgrade priority
At some point in 2025, the way Alaska Airlines determines upgrade priority will be changing to, as Alaska Airlines puts it, make upgrade priority ‘based on a member’s recent and long-term loyalty’.
Alaska Airlines Million Miler elites will receive the highest priority within their tier and after these elites have been accommodated, other flyers will be prioritized by how many elite-qualifying miles they’ve earned.
The airline has not yet published exactly how the new upgrade system will work, but VFTW reports that initially, upgrade priority will be based on the number of EQM earned in the current calendar year, before the system moves to a rolling year just as it does for American Airlines upgrades.
Alongside this rather key change, Alaska Airlines is bringing in two further enhancements.
The first one will give a flyer who is traveling on the same reservation as an MVP member access to complimentary space-available upgrades.
The second enhancement will see members with upgrade certificates being alerted by the airline the moment upgrade space opens up (Alaska Airlines does not offer waitlists for confirmed upgrades).
Bottom line
Alaska Airlines has announced a series of new changes that are coming to its Mileage Plan program for travel taken in 2025 with members being given more ways to earn Elite Qualifying Miles (EQM), Hawaii residents getting a new travel program about which we’ve been told nothing, EQM earning rates for partner bookings changing and the airline moving to prioritize upgrades based on Million Miler status and the number of Elite Qualifying Miles earned.
What do you make of all these changes?
