Extended: Alaska Mileage Plan 40% buy miles bonus until Wednesday 3pm

EXPIRED This article relates to an offer or promotion which has now expired.

The most recent Alaska Mileage Plan buy miles promotion, a 50% bonus widely available to many members, only finished 3 weeks ago, however that’s not stopping the program offering another good deal for the next few days.

This time around the offer is not quite as generous at 40% miles bonus, though some members were also offered 40% in the last round too. This time however the number of miles you need to purchase to enjoy the full bonus level is much lower than before at just 10,000 miles.

Edit Tuesday 30th October: The promotion has been extended and now runs until 2.59pm Singapore time on Wednesday 31st October.

The offer

For this promotion the 40% bonus level starts at just 10,000 miles purchased (giving you 14,000 miles for US$295.63). That means you’re getting the same cost per mile even for smaller top-ups, though there’s no bonus at the smallest 1,000 – 9,000 miles purchase levels.

In previous Alaska miles sales at least 40,000 miles had to be purchased to be eligible for the top bonus level, so this is a definite advantage especially if you’re relatively close to a redemption threshold. Buying 10,000 miles in the recent 50% bonus campaign, for example, netted you only a 20% bonus (12,000 miles total). This time it’s 40% (14,000 miles total) for the same price.

That means in this sale you’re getting Alaska miles for 2.11 US cents each right from the 10,000 miles purchase level.

Since some members (like Eddie) were only offered a 40% bonus in the last promotion, this is arguably a better deal for them – the same bonus rate with a lower minimum commitment to obtain it.

Click here to buy Alaska miles

Monday Wednesday afternoon in Singapore is your deadline

The offer closes at 11.59m PST (PDT) on Sunday 28th Tuesday 30th October 2018, which is 2.59pm on Monday 29th Wednesday 31st October 2018 Singapore time.

We checked it during the last promotion (when there was some confusion over whether they meant PST or PDT) and the offer was removed on the dot at 3pm Singapore time.

Why buy Alaska miles?

There are some fantastic uses for Alaska miles, however we don’t recommend buying them speculatively. You should ideally have a redemption plan in mind soon as changes in partner redemption relationships and valuations can occur.

Here’s a list of the airlines you can use Alaska miles with to or from the Asia-Pacific region.

Airline	Routes
	Asia – Canada/USA, Caribbean & Mexico Australia/NZ – Canada/USA
	India/South Asia – Canada/USA & Mexico
	Asia – Canada/USA Australia/NZ – Canada/USA India/South Asia – Canada/USA Intra-Asia Hong Kong – Africa, Australia/NZ, Europe, India/South Asia & Middle East
	Asia – Canada/USA Australia/NZ – Canada/USA India/South Asia – Canada/USA
	Australia/NZ – USA
	Asia – Canada/USA, Europe & Mexico India/South Asia – Canada/USA, Europe & Mexico
	Asia – Canada/USA & Mexico Intra-China
	Asia – Canada/USA Intra-Asia
	Asia – Canada/USA Australia/NZ – Canada/USA India/South Asia – Canada/USA Korea – SE Asia
	Australia/NZ – Canada/USA Intra-Australia

All can be searched and booked online via the Alaska Airlines portal, with the exception of Cathay Pacific awards where you’ll have to call Alaska Airlines to book. Ideally with Cathay you can use a tool like British Airways Avios or American Airlines AAdvantage sites to search availability first before calling.

There have been reports that Alaska doesn’t always have the same access to award seats on Cathay that other oneworld partners do. We’ve generally found the availability shown on the Avios site to be accurate. In fact I called today to check on a Cathay First Class HKG-LHR redemption for next year with availability for 1 seat showing on the BA site, to be happily told by the Alaska rep there were 2 First Class award seats on this flight.

The moral of the story here is not to get too excited with Cathay availability – it could be more or could be less. You’ll only know for sure when you call. If you have your heart set on a flight where BA for example shows no award seats, call anyway as Alaska might have availability.

Not all redemption options with all of the above carriers represent great value, especially if you’re having to buy the miles in the first place as most of our Singapore-based readers are. There are some standout deals though.

Additional partner airlines of the Alaska scheme with which you can use miles for certain redemption routes if you’re not travelling to and from the Asia-Pacific region are:

• Condor
• Icelandair
• LATAM (offline only)
• PenAir
• Ravn Alaska

Of course you can also use Alaska miles on the airline’s own flights. Additionally you can earn Alaska miles (but currently cannot not redeem flight awards) with the two newest partners:

• Aer Lingus
• Singapore Airlines

Where does the best value lie?

No doubt in this part of the world – the JAL stopover trick. Alaska Mileage Plan is not only great because of the low number of miles needed to redeem premium cabins on many routings with several airlines, but also because you can take a free stopover on any itinerary, and that’s where this trick comes in.

For example, Singapore to Kuala Lumpur or perhaps Bangkok or Jakarta, with a stopover in Tokyo. Sounds impossible – but it works in Business Class for 25,000 Alaska miles. Availability is also usually very good. Here’s a recap on how it works.

What’s the JAL ‘stopover trick’? An exceptional rate of 25,000 Alaska miles for a ‘return’ flight from Singapore to Japan in Business Class. This takes advantage of the ability under the Alaska scheme to book free stopovers on one-way redemption tickets. It means you can create a ‘pseudo return’ itinerary for a very low miles rate by booking a redemption to a close-by city, with a stopover in a distant one. The JAL trick is effectively booking Japan Airlines from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, with a stopover in Tokyo. Sounds like it shouldn’t be possible – but it is, and it’s incredible value at 25,000 Alaska miles in business class (the equivalent of 12,500 miles for each 7 hour sector). Other routings are also possible, you could decide to start your journey in Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok for example and return non-stop to Singapore. Jakarta is also an option. Generally speaking, JAL Business Class award availability through Alaska MP is also quite good. The variety of aircraft types used on JAL flights in Asia means you’ll likely be able to try out their newest ‘Sky Suite III’ and ‘Sky Suite 787’ flat-bed products, not to mention renowned on-board service and cuisine. There’s also a selection of oneworld lounges to visit depending on your routing and the time of day, so this is your chance to try out facilities like the Qantas Singapore Lounge, JAL’s Tokyo lounges or the Qatar / Cathay offerings in Bangkok. Something new if you’re used to flying the Singapore Airlines / Star Alliance network. In order to search and book such an itinerary on the Alaska Airlines website, select ‘all search options’ under the booking area, then select ‘multi-city’ and of course ensure the ‘use miles’ option is selected. After that simply enter each leg separately (e.g. Singapore to Tokyo for the first flight, Tokyo to Kuala Lumpur on the second flight), select the dates you want (your stopover in Tokyo can be as long as you like), then search to check award availability.

We first wrote about Alaska Mileage Plan in March this year, and we outlined what we saw as some of the best deals available through the scheme in that article, well worth a read of you’re interested.

Some of the standout redemptions include:

• JAL Singapore to New York – 60,000 miles in Business Class or 70,000 in First
• Cathay Pacific Singapore to Los Angeles – 50,000 miles in Business Class or 70,000 in First
• Cathay Pacific Hong Kong to London – 42,500 miles in Business Class
• Korean Air Singapore to Chicago return – 120,000 miles in Business Class
• Qantas Sydney to Dallas – 55,000 miles in Business Class or 70,000 in First
• Qantas Perth to Sydney – 20,000 miles in Business Class (Avios is charging 37,500 points on this route with Qantas, while KrisFlyer on Virgin Australia is 40,000 miles)

Remember with a free stopover you can always break up your journey using Alaska miles, for example if Singapore to Hong Kong to New York with Cathay Pacific sounds a bit of a stretch all in one go, take a few nights in Hong Kong en-route for no extra miles or charges.

The full partner award charts are also available to search on the Alaska Mileage Plan site.

When will Singapore Airlines flights be added?

Still no sign of the ability to use Alaska Miles on Singapore Airlines flights, the most recent addition was Finnair in August this year. Hopefully an agreement is reached soon and fingers crossed SIA award availability through Alaska will be searchable and bookable online.

Who can buy?

The usual account age rules apply – your Alaska Mileage Plan account must be at least 10 days old to qualify for purchasing miles, so you won’t be able to sign up as a new member now and purchase in this sale.

Having said that some people have signed up for a new account and been offered the 40% purchase buy miles bonus immediately, so Alaska doesn’t always stick hard and fast to this rule. It may be worth a try if you’re interested. In any event signing up for an account is free, so we’d recommend it.

It’s nearly unlimited

One advantage of buying Alaska miles for those with big travel plans coming up is the ability to buy an effectively unlimited volume of miles by repeating the purchases (ideally at the 40% bonus level in each case).

You can only make a maximum of four miles purchases per card however, so you are technically limited by the number of credit cards you have.

Which card to use

Since we’re talking about credit cards, assuming you’re based in Singapore you’ll want the maximum number of credit card miles for the transaction, which takes place in US dollars through points.com.

You can earn the most extra miles for the purchase transaction by using one of the following Singapore issued credit cards if you can:

We also understand the Citi Rewards Visa or Mastercard earns at the 10x bonus rewards rates (4 miles per dollar) on points.com transactions, though as we haven’t tried this do be cautious and don’t scold us if the bonus is not credited!

Summary

Another generous deal from Alaska – 40% bonus is typically the highest level regularly offered for their miles purchase promotions. Although a 50% offer was running last month, it wasn’t targeted to everyone and required a much bigger buy-in to generate the top bonus level.

This time round you can enjoy the maximum bonus buying just 10,000 miles.

As always, have a plan to use these miles before you go ahead and buy – while Alaska miles are valuable and can help you extract excellent value they are by no means immune from partner agreement changes and devaluations.

Click here to buy Alaska miles

Will you buy Alaska miles in this sale? Have you used them to book flights before? Let us know about your plans and experiences in the comments section below.

(Cover Photo: Finnair)