Sorry about the repeat, but the first did not appear on the Ireland thread. Has anyone ever had the problem of flying to Shannon using FF miles from the west coast...we are told you must spend the night in Manchester (both ways of the trip)to go from west coast to Shannon on British Air. The only other airline that partners with Alaska Air is Continental, who have a direct flight from Newark to Shannon, but don't seem to ever have any availability for Alaska Air miles owners. Now we have to fly West coast to Heathrow to Manchester, spend night and go to Shannon. Same on reverse. Anyone have a solution to this?

First, I'm assuming you have Alaska Airlines miles. If so, you could also get an award ticket on American, KLM and Northwest. I can't help you with KLM or NWA, but American could be a possibility.
The other question is, when do you want to leave and comeback and how many people?
Hopefully this is sometime in the future, as it's going to be very hard getting something on a short notice during summer months, unless you are willing to spend bunch of miles for 1st class.
And finally what city are you flying from?

Thanks for the response. Flying from Seattle in Sept. American apparantly doesn't fly to Shannon, only British and Continental from what I have been told.

September? and you only starting now? I'm afraid you are stuck with whatever deal AS is willing to put together for you at this time.
You could check www.awardplanner.com . They are VERY good at finding award tickets, but there is a cost involved.
Also ask AS if a business of first award would get you on a simpler routing, but again that will cost few more miles.
Good Luck!

Thanks for the help. We do have tickets on hold with British, but that is the looong route I am talking about. I was hoping to get there a little more efficiently.

Don't know if you have any miles on Delta (or if they are a partner with Alaska Air), but Delta flies direct from Atlanta to Shannon.

No, Delta is not a partner of Alaska and I don't have any miles there. They are all on Alaska. Guess maybe this trip with the overnight is my only option.