Lucky's turn:
I have a friend who works at Emirates, who shared with me what really happened. Emirates was pissed at Alaska for the number of first class redemptions coming through their program. They wanted to cut off Emirates first class redemptions altogether for Alaska Mileage Plan, and the new redemption rates were looked at as a compromise. The main goal was to make the product so highly priced that only a tiny fraction of people would redeem for it.
This is part of why I find it so hilarious that Alaska is pointing at “travel hackers,” as they’re calling them. They knew exactly what was going on, and were profiting hugely off of it. Internal reimbursement rates between airlines are low, and Alaska was making tens of millions of dollars selling miles to people they knew wanted to redeem for Emirates first class.
While it does shed a bit more light and confirms some things, I do love how all of them just shift blame around. If it wasn't for bloggers advertising xBM's and purchasing miles for this, there wouldn't be "that many redemptions for EK F coming through their program".