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Until 5th October 2017 you can get up to 50% more Miles in the latest Alaska Miles sale.
The bonus is advertised as being targeted, but I checked a few different family accounts and all of them had the same ‘up to 50%’ offer as below:
- Buy 10,000 – 19,000 miles and get a 20% bonus
- Buy 20,000 – 39,000 miles and get a 35% bonus
- Buy 40,000 – 60,000 miles and get a 50% bonus
If you max out the offer you can buy 90,000 Miles for ~£1,385 ($1773.75 USD). There isn’t actually a limit to the number of transactions you can make though, so if you want more than 90,000 Miles, just repeat the transaction.
As long as you buy 40,000 or more Miles (+ 20,000 bonus Miles), the cost per Mile works out at ~1.54p (1.97 cents) per Mile, which is actually pretty good for Alaska Miles.
Why do I want Alaska Miles?
Great question. I know it sounds a bit weird, so here’s a quick lowdown on why Alaska Mileage Plan Miles are brilliant:
The Alaska award chart has some fantastic sweetspots on it, great partners, and some unique features that really help you to stretch the value you can get from your Miles. The most important aspects to understand are that there aren’t any ‘surcharges’ on most partners and that you can (usually) get a free stopover even on one-way awards!
Examples
Starting with a relatively simple example, you could buy 50,000 Miles for ~£770 and use them to fly Business Class on American to New York, stopover as long as you like, and then fly Business Class to Los Angeles – all on the same ticket!
Using Avios, you would need just under 100,000 for the same flights and would pay a hefty chunk of ‘surcharges’ on top too!
More exotically, what about using Alaska Miles to fly from New York to Hong Kong in Cathay Pacific First Class (stopping over as long as you like) and then continuing on to Johannesburg in Business Class for – all for 70,000 Miles.
That’s A LOT of luxury flying for ~£1,078, and could be an amazing redemption if you used it as part of a Round-The-World trip!
If you prefer something a little simpler, Cathay Pacific Business Class from London to Hong Kong is just 42,500 Miles each way. A return would therefore set you back 85,000 Miles, which you can buy for ~£1,300. You would have to factor Air Passenger Duty etc too, but there are no surcharges.
Good deal?
I don’t normally recommend buying Miles, but there are plenty of situations in this case where doing so really could make sense – as long as you have a clear purpose and have checked out the availability for your dates in advance.
Alaska Miles are my favourite Points/Miles ‘currency’ (apart from SPG Starpoints!), because you can redeem them for amazing flights like the examples above (and many others), and if I didn’t already have a decent stash I might well have been tempted to top up.
Terms
Only Mileage Plan™ members who receive this offer directly from Alaska Airlines via email are qualified to participate. This is an exclusive, non-transferable offer for the intended recipient only and may not be forwarded.
Transactions must be completed between 9:00 AM ET August 21, 2017 and 11:59 PM ET October 5, 2017 to be eligible for bonus miles.
Miles are purchased from Points.com Inc. for a cost of $27.50 per 1,000 miles, plus a 7.5% Federal Excise Tax*, and GST/HST for Canadian residents.
Miles are non-refundable and do not count toward MVP and MVP/Gold status. Offer is subject to change and all terms and conditions of the Mileage Plan Program apply.
Miles are purchased from Points.com Inc. for a cost of $27.50 per 1,000 miles, plus a 7.5% Federal Excise Tax*, and GST/HST for Canadian residents. Miles are non-refundable and do not count toward MVP and MVP/Gold status. Offer is subject to change and all terms and conditions of the Mileage Plan Program apply.
*Points.com Inc. is collecting Federal Excise Tax on behalf of Alaska Airlines Inc. Alaska Airlines Inc. has the obligation to collect Federal Excise Tax and remit the tax to the appropriate government agency.
In a slightly different but similar topic:
Crediting a Virgin America First flight (Booked from Alaska site) credited to Alaska or to British Airways?
Is it possible to credit those to BAEC (even if bought on Alaska site)? Regardless, I’d go for Alaska – I suspect you’d end up with more Miles and they are worth considerably more than Avios.
Definitely take the Alaska miles.
To be fair, I’m trying to think of a situation where mine and your answer wouldn’t be, “take the Alaska Miles!”.
Eg. “I’m not sure what to order to eat”, “yeah, I’d definitely go for the Alaska Miles”, etc…
Today is the last day to buy with the bonus points (though it might be extended). I still can’t decide whether to go for it.
It comes around frequently enough. If you have nothing imminent to book you can wait…
I rarely need to buy since 120K drop into my account with every Marriott Rewards Travel Package! 🙂
Thanks – good to know they the deal comes around fairly often. One thing to remember in the point collecting hobby is – you can never have too many Alaska miles! I’ve got a nice pile of SPG points waiting to be transferred to Marriott for an Alaska package when the time comes. I did JNB-HKG-LAX in Business and First (CX) last time but I’m having trouble beating or even matching that value. I’m currently thinking about TLV-HKG-LAX in Business and First for 70,000 Alaska miles. AA/AS/BA in First HNL-LHR-JNB for 80,000 Alaska miles is interesting, though the BA fees take the shine off it a bit. Any ideas for better value Alaska redemptions? Obscure destinations or airlines are welcomed!
Correction – TLV-HKG-JFK is the current plan.
On my to-do list of posts is the something about free stopovers. 80K for First Class USA-LHR-JNB might not be fantastic or useful for most. But USA-LHR, go home for a few months, then continue to South Africa for your next holiday. That becomes 40K for a one-way First Class USA-home and another 40K for a one-way First Class home – South Africa. Who cares how much in surcharge is added if you can manage 2 long haul holidays in a year!