Alaska Miles for Air France award flight
In points and miles community, many people have jumped on the waggon of ex-CAI flight fares due to sudden massive devaluation Egypt Pounds last November. The question arises after we acquired our flight tickets originating from Cairo, How can we get there? (Air France New Business Class using Alaska Miles of course)
Depending on where you are in the world, you probably have a million ways to use different mileage currency to get there. However, for myself, I am always interested in trying out new airlines in a situation like this. The choose for flying out of Canada would be redeeming Aeroplan using Egypt Air non-stop flight from Toronto to Cairo, or use European carriers to make a stop along the way. One deal breaker for Egypt Air is that there is no alcohol served on board, so this would not be an option for me.
Air France and KLM are partners with Alaska Airlines, so you can earn and redeem miles when flying their flights. However, it has been knowing in travel community that, AF and KLM are extremely stingy when come to releasing flight awards to the partner airlines, a general issue among Skyteam airlines too. I have tried to look up to get a sense of how bad the availabilities are for flying from Montreal to Paris and Cairo. Based on the initial search, the possibility was zero. You can never find any available flight that takes you from Montreal to Cairo.
A few nights ago, I was browsing ExpertFlyer’s AF award space; I noticed a few space opened on different dates from YUL-CDG and CDG-CAI. So I fired up the browser and used Multi-City tool to see what results I would get.
BOOM!
I was able to find available flights in March (just for testing), that allow me to fly Business class on Air France new Dreamliner, and stop in Paris for few days, then continue my journey to Cairo on its Dreamliner. Unfortunately, the second flight is in coach, and according to ExpoertFlyer, Air France does not even release any seat in the future, you can only view availabilities within two to three weeks of departure, though at least we are getting somewhere.
Next, I fired up Google Map, and looked around Cairo, and found a bunch of cities that an hour flight away from CAI, such as AMM, and there are plenty of spaces in Business class, even though it is dated Airbus A320/1. I think I am getting somewhere at least.
Take Away
If you are looking for an Air France award flight on Alaska miles, do not get discouraged if you cannot find anything in one shot, try to search segment by segment, and then use multi-city tool to play around the second leg, or third leg’s date. You may be surprised!