American Airlines Drops Alaska Air Partnership while Boosting Advantage Points through Qantas

As of March 1 next year, Alaska Air mileage plan enrollees will have to look beyond American Airlines for enhancing their rewards accounts on international flights. However, flyers will still be able to garner mile-for-mile value on American flights with Alaska codeshares to select destinations in the Midwest, East Coast and parts of Canada.

According to news reports, Alaska claims the American Airline partnership no longer fits the format of either of the airline companies, especially following Alaska’s acquisition of Virgin America in 2016. Alaska Air still has partnerships with 15 international carriers.

Alaska Airlines also broke its partnership with Delta last year after the Virgin America purchase. At that time Delta started an aggressive push to make Seattle one of its hubs and began to directly competite with Alaska for routes on the West Coast.

Meanwhile, American Airlines is strengthening its relationship with Qantas. American Airlines and Qantas are rolling out improved frequent flyer benefits, including higher earning rates for points and status credits on each airline’s network. The partnership also includes enhanced connectivity with new codeshare destinations in the United States.

American customers will enjoy five additional codeshare markets with Qantas, and Qantas customers will benefit from enhanced connectivity across North America with access to more than 50 new routes and 30 new destinations.

This expansion is being implemented following the U.S. Department of Transportation’s final approval of Qantas and American’s joint business.

AAdvantage members can now earn miles and elite status faster than ever on eligible flights between the United States and Australia or New Zealand thanks to an increase in mileage accrual. Members may earn up to two times more elite qualifying miles (EQMs) and elite qualifying dollars (EQDs) for most cabin classes on all eligible Qantas flights systemwide.

American also recently expanded its codeshare on new routes operated by Qantas, for a new total of 32 codeshare markets.

New flights operated by Qantaswith expanded American codeshare:

 Los Angeles (LAX) to Sydney (SYD)

 Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) to SYD

 San Francisco (SFO) to Melbourne, Australia (MEL)

 SFO to Brisbane, Australia (BNE)

 Chicago (ORD) to BNE

Qantas has expanded its codeshare with American, adding more than 50 new codeshare city pairs from DFW and ORD. This expansion adds 28 new codeshare destinations to the Qantas network in the United States.

With these new destinations, Qantas places its code on American services to more than 100 destinations and almost 200 domestic city pairs.

From DFW, the new codeshare destinations include:

 Spokane (GEG)

 Charleston (CHS)

 Dayton (DAY)

 Savannah (SAV)

 Vail/Eagle (EGE)

From ORD, the new codeshare routes include:

 New York (LGA and EWR)

 Boston (BOS)

 Miami (MIA)

 Washington (DCA)

 Philadelphia (PHL)

 Charlotte (CLT)