Booking Starlux Airlines

What started as sharing my experience on one booking has now turned into multiple trips with more booked and a sweet spot for Asia if you have Alaska Atmos Miles. They are a Taiwanese international airline company headquartered in Taipei. Their first flights launched on January 23, 2020 and expanded to North America in 2023. They are one of the newer international carriers available to us, and haven't received as much attention, so I figured my booking would be of interest. I'll go over how I booked my flights and the seat selection process. I will also note that the booking experience overall has improved over time, especially as Alaska has improved their website. I have now been able to book multiple flights with Starlux. Let's dive in!

Updated 12/7/2025

Starlux Booking Options

Assuming you don't want to book your Starlux Airlines with cash, your options for award flights are a bit limited. They have their own rewards program, called COSMILE, but that isn't useful for most. The option that we want to focus on is their partnership with Alaska Airlines that started back in April of 2023. When airlines have a partnership, it typically allows you to earn & redeem miles between the two airlines. It also allows you to book connecting flights on a single ticket between two airlines. That is assuming your award search shows those options, of course.

How I Booked My First Flight

With the Alaska Partnership, this meant I could use Atmos miles to book a Starlux Airlines flight. Luckily, with my first booking, I had just taken advantage of the Bank of America Atmos business card welcome offer. Availability has been slim pickings since shortly after the partnership was announced, and I had been scouring for a flight back from an Asia trip. I had been looking almost daily and scouring other airlines as well. In 2025, we now have even more point earning options available with the release of the new Alaska Atmos rewards program and the Atmos Summit Visa credit card..

Funny enough, while on another flight I received a Thrifty Traveler Premium award alert email for Starlux availability. I searched and found Taipei (TPE) to San Francisco (SFO) nonstop for 75,000 Atmos miles. I jumped on the space as quickly as I could, and a few clicks later I had my ticket. I have also now booked other trips such as SEA-TPE-BKK (Bangkok), and most recently SEA-TPE-SGN (Saigon/Ho Chi Min City).

Searching For Availability

Here are the steps I take to search for space via Alaska Airlines website. I always start with the TPE (Taipei) route for my searches as that is the long-haul flight. The key is to choose “Use Miles” and “Flexible Dates.”

When the initial search and calendar come up, it will default to the lowest price available. You want to go to the drop-down menu and choose “Partner Business”

Once you have chosen partner business, you will see the calendar. The availability you are looking for is 75k. You will see other partner availability in these searches as well.

Once you choose that date with the 75k, you can view the flights and how many seats left. I have flown this route and then booked a separate flight to where I want to go within Asia. The other option is to then do your search the exact same way as above but adding in other cities. This option with Starlux does not seem to work like a normal stopover booking and has always added 10k to my booking regardless of whether the second leg is economy or business. In some cases, they have added 15k. I checked several data points during my bookings to confirm that. It is good to remember that there is a $12.50 non-refundable partner booking fee as part of the booking. This is waived if you have the Atmos Summit card.

Sweet Spots and Tendencies

One of the nice things is when you are searching, technically you should only have to search from one city. For example if I am searching from Seattle (SEA) it will still show up but as 85k. This means it is available but from a different city which will show in the search. You can then elect to either book as is for 85k or book at 75k and book your own separate repositioning flight to get to that airport.

One of the great things about Starlux is last minute availability. having booked this on multiple trips as close as just 30 hours out. On my most recent trip, I booked and canceled several flights as I worked towards the exact flight I wanted. I was able to book a flight the week of and within a couple days almost like clockwork from at least one airport.

My Experience Choosing Seats

Often times the booking can be easier than figuring out how to choose a seat on partner airlines. When booking a partner airline award, it can sometimes be confusing, or difficult, to figure out where to start.

For Alaska Airlines you need to look under, “My Trips”. Here they provided me with my Alaska Airlines e-ticket number and confirmation code. Additionally, they provided me with a Starlux booking code, which is mighty helpful. As long as everything is ticketed fine, you can select seats online with no need to chat. However, since I had to chat on my initial experience and once on a different experience, I have broken down the chat and seat selection.

Figure Out Seat Options Before Chatting (if needed)

We have some resources on general seat selection tips that may come in handy for your booking. As for my Starlux booking, their website has a great section with seat maps which helps you plan ahead before you reach out. I like how they noted seats with obstructed views as well.

Seat Selection

Simply go to the Starlux website and find the drop down menu under, “Plan My Trip” Then simply choose “Manage My Trip” to bring up the screen where you will enter your booking code and information.

Once you enter the information required it will take you to a screen to select your seats.

Finding Starlux Chat Can Be Difficult

Outside of my first booking and a glitch on a changed flight, I have had no issues selecting seats. That being said, the chat feature can come in handy when needed.

If you need to chat with Starlux customer service in order to actually select your seat or any other issues, here are some tips. Even though the website mentions their chat feature all over the place, it isn't the easiest to locate. You have to scroll down to the bottom of the page to locate the chat feature. They will give you various chat options for different countries etc. I elected to chat in Taiwan during their business hours since I figured this would be most productive. Once you click on that you will enter your information and be put in a queue.

Booking Starlux Airlines With Alaska Miles: ToP Thoughts

My experience booking Starlux Airlines with Alaska miles has become easy and my Asia go to. Hopefully the lessons I learned and booking tendencies will help you when it is your turn. I love having another option to Asia, and it's a good use of Atmos points. This may be what you use your Bilt Rewards points for, since Alaska is a transfer partner as well.

Have you booked Starlux yet? Let us know over in our Facebook Group your thoughts.