Low-cost long-haul carrier French Bee has partnered with Alaska Airlines to allow travelers to purchase a combined ticket for a French Bee and an Alaska Airlines flight.
French Bee offers flights between New York or San Francisco and Paris, Tahiti, Reunion Island, and Punta Cana. The agreement will open up those international destinations to travelers coming from U.S. airports other than San Francisco or New York. And the added bonus is that luggage will be checked through to the final destination, and a boarding pass for the entire journey will be provided at the onset.
The combined flights can currently be purchased through travel agencies in the United States and France (the agencies must use Sabre or Amadeus booking technology) and will be bookable on the French Bee website by this spring (no exact date has been provided yet). For now, the combo flights cannot be booked via the Alaska Airlines site, and you can’t get Alaska miles for the French Bee flights.
But considering that one-way flights from New York to Paris start at $139 with French Bee’s basic fare (which includes taxes and a 26.5-pound carry-on bag) and that round-trip flights from San Francisco to Tahiti are as low as $500 with the basic fare, the Alaska miles might be worth forgoing.
The new connections include flights to Paris from Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Orange County/Santa Ana (California), Portland (Oregon), Palm Springs, San Diego, San Jose, and Seattle via a transfer at either San Francisco International Airport or Newark International Airport. Flights to Tahiti are now available via a transfer at San Francisco International Airport from Boston, Chicago O’Hare, Dallas, Paine Field (Washington), Las Vegas, Los Angeles, John F. Kennedy (New York), Newark (New Jersey), Orange County/Santa Ana, Orlando, Palm Springs, Portland (Oregon), San Diego, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. (Dulles and Reagan).
All French Bee flights take place on new Airbus A350 planes.
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