Alaska Mileage Plan up to 50% buy miles bonus

In case you were worried that there wouldn’t be an Alaska Mileage Plan bonus offer this month, let’s clarify two things:

1. It’s now the 8th of the month.
2. Another Alaska Mileage Plan bonus offer has been announced.

The good news is you may have been targeted for the top 50% bonus rate, making each mile 1.97 US cents.

Another bonus?!

Believe it or not, even we get surprised by the airlines sometimes. If you’re a regular reader it probably won’t have escaped your attention that Alaska Mileage Plan recently had a 40% buy miles bonus, and yes you’re remembering correctly – it only finished last week.

Less than three weeks before that promotion, another two-week long bonus had just ended.

This latest promotion runs until 22nd December in Singapore, meaning by that date Alaska will have been offering miles at a discount for 69 out of the previous 94 days (73% of the time).

We’re all for bonuses and discounts, but frankly this is getting silly. We are now seriously considering publishing an article only when Alaska isn’t offering a bonus rate on purchased miles! In fact we notice The Points Guy now has a permanent page for Alaska ‘buy miles’ promotions – not a bad idea it seems.

It’s still a good deal

We digress a little by dwelling on the nonsensical frequency of the offer, let’s get down to business (pun intended). Alaska miles still represent good value at these high bonus rates, and 50% is the highest bonus they offer.

First and Business Class redemptions with Alaska’s partner airlines are the key here. If like us you’re based in Asia – think options like Cathay Pacific or JAL Business / First Class to the USA, Qantas from Sydney to Dallas in First Class on the A380, heck even Qantas flat-bed A330 domestic Business Class can be a steal with these miles.

We’ve outlined the great uses of Alaska miles to and from this region before, but here’s a recap of the options applicable to the majority of our readers.

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 of these 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 program like British Airways Avios or American Airlines AAdvantage sites to search availability first before calling.

We’ve read varying accounts of what Cathay Pacific availability Alaska phone agents can and cannot see.

We generally find the Cathay availability shown on the BA Avios site to be accurate.

Many of the reports we read about are negative, but in our latest check at the end of October while trying to secure a Cathay First Class HKG-LHR redemption for next year with one available award seat showing on the BA site, the Alaska phone rep could see two First Class award seats on this flight.

Moral of the story – there is no set rule. It could be the same as you see online, it could be less or it could be more, but one thing is certain – no matter what you find online elsewhere you won’t know for sure until you call.

The JAL stopover ‘trick’

One major benefit of Alaska miles is that you can add a free stopover to your journey. This allows a fairly unique trick here in Asia using Japan Airlines to create a pseudo-return itinerary in Business Class for just 25,000 Alaska miles. We’ve written about it before, but 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.

Other good redemptions

Even if the JAL trick isn’t of interest to you – there are plenty other good uses of Alaska miles. Here are a few more ideas with comparison against the miles needed for the same routings with other frequent flyer programs:

Japan Airlines

Singapore to New York First Class*	200,000	85,000	75,000
Singapore to New York Business Class	165,000	70,000	65,000

* Business Class Singapore to Tokyo, First Class Tokyo to New York

Cathay Pacific

Singapore to Los Angeles First Class	160,000	130,000	70,000
Singapore to Los Angeles Business Class	135,000	85,000	50,000
Sydney to New York First Class*	200,000	130,000	80,000
Sydney to New York Business Class	165,000	85,000	60,000
Hong Kong to London Business Class	90,000	65,000	42,500
Vancouver to New York First Class	50,000	40,000	35,000

* Business Class Sydney to Hong Kong, First Class Hong Kong to New York

Korean Air

Singapore to Chicago Business Class	200,000 (return)	150,000 (return)	120,000 (return)

Qantas

Sydney to Dallas First Class	200,000	168,000	70,000
Sydney to Dallas Business Class	165,000	112,000	55,000
Perth to Sydney Business Class	37,500	36,000	20,000

Emirates

Singapore to New York First Class	178,750	168,000	180,000
Singapore to New York Business Class	131,250	112,000	105,000

Finnair

Singapore to London Business Class	105,000	70,000	60,000

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

Click here to buy Alaska miles

Don’t buy speculatively

Alaska miles aren’t for everybody – in our opinion you should not buy Alaska miles speculatively. Have a solid redemption plan in mind in the near future, or know exactly what you want to redeem now (having checked it’s available), as changes in both partner redemption relationships and valuations can occur.

The current offer

There’s more than one offer doing the rounds this time, so you’ll need to log on to check what bonus you have been given. For me – it’s a 50% bonus at the top end, structured as follows:

• 0 – 9,000 miles – no bonus (2.96 US ¢ / mile)
• 10,000 – 19,000 miles – 20% bonus (2.46 US ¢ / mile)
• 20,000 – 39,000 miles – 35% bonus (2.19 US ¢ / mile)
• 40,000 – 60,000 miles – 50% bonus (1.97 US ¢ / mile)

For Eddie it’s 40% maximum bonus in this offer, with the following breakdown:

• 0 – 9,000 miles – no bonus (2.96 US ¢ / mile)
• 10,000 – 19,000 miles – 20% bonus (2.46 US ¢ / mile)
• 20,000 – 29,000 miles – 35% bonus (2.27 US ¢ / mile)
• 30,000 – 60,000 miles – 40% bonus (2.11 US ¢ / mile)

Note that those targeted for a 40% bonus appear to have a lower minimum threshold to achieve it (30,000 miles instead of 40,000).

Deadline: 22nd December

The offer closes at 11.59m PST on Friday 21st December 2018, which is 3.59pm on Saturday 22nd December 2018 Singapore time.

Anyone can now buy with a bonus

Alaska Airlines has removed their limitation that only accounts 10 days or older can buy miles. That means you can sign up for an Alaska Mileage Plan account at any time and see what miles purchase bonus you are entitled to right away. It may not be 50% of course, but it’s worth a try so sign up now if you don’t yet have an account.

It’s unlimited (nearly)

When you log on to the Alaska site and happily see your bonus miles purchase offer you’ll scroll down to buy the number you need.

You might automatically assume the highest level shown in the drop-down menu is the limit – it’s not.

You can buy an effectively unlimited volume of miles by repeating the purchases. 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

Those based in Singapore will likely want to achieve the maximum number of credit card miles when buying Alaska miles. If you do go ahead and buy, the transaction happens 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!

When will Singapore Airlines flights be added?

There’s still no sign of the ability to use Alaska Miles on Singapore Airlines flights, the most recent addition was Finnair in August this year. We did think that once the schedule and award availability for the new non-stop Singapore – Seattle flight was loaded yesterday we might also see this functionality added, but that didn’t happen.

Seattle is Alaska Airlines’ hub and the new SIA route will depend heavily on connectivity between the two carriers. Hopefully an agreement is reached soon and we look forward to SIA award availability through Alaska Mileage Plan. We’ll let you know when it happens.

Summary

We love Alaska miles, we really do, but this 45-day long offer so soon after two back-to-back bonus rates were offered is honestly slightly laughable. If your miles are being sold at an effective discount about 75% of the time, the quoted price itself is false.

One thing’s for sure – you should never buy Alaska miles at full price. Heck you shouldn’t even buy them at anything less than 40% bonus. Why? Because an offer at least that good is inevitably just around the corner.

We used to laud the 50% bonus offers as something to jump on, given that it typically popped up once a year, but now we would honestly recommend only holding out for that bonus level given that we’ve seen it twice in the past few months.

As for whether to buy, our advice never changes. Have a plan to use these miles first. Alaska miles are useful and valuable (we wouldn’t write about them if they weren’t), and you can achieve excellent value from them in a variety of cases. That doesn’t mean they are immune from partner agreement changes and devaluations, so as always when buying miles – tread carefully.

Click here to buy Alaska miles

(Cover Photo: MainlyMiles)