The announcement of the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan changes isn’t all good news. Earlier we covered the elite status earning changes, Milestone Rewards and other positive changes. Now it’s time to look at the negative changes which include some of the status benefits provided and also mileage earning on flights.
Changes to and loss of several Elite status benefits
Alaska Airlines is making it easier to earn status in 2025 with elite status qualifying on award flights and from non-airline partners but the elite statuses will lose some benefits that are provided currently by the program.
These are the benefits that are being removed or changed:
- Removal of 50,000 bonus miles awarded to MVP Gold 75K members
- Removal of Four lounge passes awarded to MVP Gold 75K members
- Removal of $100 discount on Alaska Airlines lounge memberships
- Change of MVP level free checked bag benefit from 2 bags to 1 bag (from 2026 on)
Some of these benefits will be available as part of the Milestone Rewards perks that members will be able to choose from when they hit the various milestone levels.
Changes in partner airline mileage earning
While Alaska Airlines is simplifying the earn rates on eligible flights by making them the same across all their partners, they are adjusting how many miles are actually awarded based on where you book the flights.
The focus from the program is obviously to drive bookings not only for Alaska Airlines flights but for partner flights via Alaska’s website or call center as they will be awarding more miles for doing so.
When you book flights with partner airline on the partner airline’s website or via an OTA or travel agent and credit those flights to Mileage Plan you will earn less miles.
As you can earn Mileage Plan miles when flying with Porter Airlines we’ll use them as an example but this will be the same for any partner airline.
If you book a Porter Airlines flight on Alaska’s website you’ll earn miles as follows
| Class of Service | Base Miles | Bonus Miles | Total Miles | Elite Qualifying Miles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Premium Economy | 100% | 50% | 150% | 150% |
| Economy | 100% | 0% | 100% | 100% |
| Discount Economy | 100% | 0% | 100% | 100% |
Of note is that until the end of 2024 when you book an absolute cheapest discount economy class ticket (Fare Class X) via Alaska Airline it will only earn 30% miles however as of 2025 that will be boosted to 100%
and if you book the flight with Porter and credit to Alaska:
| Class of Service | Base Miles | Bonus Miles | Total Miles | Elite Qualifying Miles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Premium Economy | 100% | 0% | 100% | 100% |
| Economy | 50% | 0% | 50% | 50% |
| Discount Economy | 25% | 0% | 25% | 25% |
As you can see there are significant differences in the amount of miles earned when booking Porter flights via Alaska and via Porter. If you are someone who wants to credit Porter flights to Mileage Plan you’ll have the make the call whether it is worth it to buy via Alaska as those flights will be charged in US$ so you will incur a foreign transaction fee when booking the ticket (unless you use a No FX Fee card) to earn more miles (it will likely be worth it) or to book via Porter (or anywhere else) to pay in C$ and earn less miles.
What is unfortunate is you can only book Porter’s Canada-U.S. flights on Alaska’s site You cannot buy Porter’s domestic flights with Alaska which means you can only earn the lower mileage amounts if you credit them to Mileage Plan.
Wrapping it up
As you can see it’s not all positive changes to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan although I would say the positives do outweigh the negatives. The loss (or move) of several elite status benefits are unfortunate, especially that awesome 50,000 Mileage Plan miles when hitting 75K, which if you choose bonus miles as your Milestone rewards don’t come even close to that! The mileage earning changes for partner airline flights booked elsewhere are also quite a big hit but that can be alleviated if you can book those flights via Alaska Airlines.