Alaska Air and Hainan $553 LAX or SFO to Beijing for Mileage Plan 7,630 EQM

Seeing Alaska Airlines listed for a low fare flight to Beijing caught my attention. In 2015 Alaska Airlines teamed up with China’s Hainan Airlines. The $553 round trip fare flying Alaska Airlines to Seattle and Hainan Airlines Seattle to Beijing is a low fare with a good mid-day schedule for flights that has you departing and landing between 8:30 and 5pm local times and none of those crazy 3am arrivals and departures all too common when traveling to Asia.

There are more than 20 departure dates from SFO and LAX in March and April with $553 round trip fares San Francisco SFO-PEK Beijing.

There are also no long layovers commonly seen if you book low fare tickets on SkyTeam Alliance members China Eastern or China Southern. Hainan Airlines, like Alaska Airlines, is not a member in any of the three major global airline alliances: Oneworld, SkyTeam and Star Alliance.

Alaska Air Mileage Plan members Earn on Hainan Flights

Alaska Mileage Plan members earn and redeem miles for Hainan flights. The redemption function to buy Hainan tickets with Mileage Plan miles is not yet in place, but website states early 2016.

The $553 Hainan round trip ticket is a discount economy booking class and earns only 50% flight miles in Alaska Mileage Plan. Good news is that you will still earn far more miles than an elite SkyMiles or Mileage Plus flyer gets on Delta or United economy flights.

Flying San Francisco to Seattle is 679 miles each way for 1,358 flight miles and Seattle to Beijing PEK is 5,722 flight miles each way for a total 7,080 EQM flight miles considering the 50% earn rate for Hainan. Mileage Plan elite members earn regular elite bonus miles on Hainan flights. LAX-SEA routing adds another 550 flight miles for 7,630 EQM.

I noticed the option to fly Virgin America to Seattle was offered for the same $553 price. This looks like a move by Hainan Airlines to drive passenger traffic from California to their Seattle route, rather than a deal through either of their partners Alaska Airlines or Virgin America.

Hainan Airlines San Francisco – Seattle – Beijing

$552.46 round trip Tuesday March 8 – Tuesday March 15