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Buy Alaska Air Miles and get a 40% bonus

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Buy Alaska Air Miles and get a 40% bonus

Alaska Air has promotions almost every quarter to buy points. In fact, there seems to be quite a few promotions lately for points purchases: Hilton ran an 80% bonus, IHG a 100% bonus, and now you can buy Alaska Air Miles and get a 40% bonus. This isn’t the best we’ve ever seen from Alaska, that’s 50%, but it’s 2nd best and a very good deal. I just wrote a Monday Memo about different situations where purchasing points can be a good idea, but let’s focus in on Alaska and some of their amazing opportunities.

Here’s a look at the deal:

Screen Shot 2017-02-22 at 2.35.45 PM

The offer is tiered:

In my opinion I wouldn’t go for the deal without securing a 40% bonus. If you don’t need that many miles or don’t wish to spend the cash to purchase at that bonus level I’d wait. Another deal will come around later this year that could possibly afford you the opportunity to buy fewer miles and still get a good bonus.
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60k + 24k would set you back $1773.75 or roughly 2.1 cents per point

Enough with the boring stuff. What are some cool things I could do with the points?

Here are the Alaska charts for redeeming awards on Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, and American Airlines from the Continental U.S. to Asia

70k Alaska would put you in Japan Airlines first class.

Japan Airlines First Class is truly incredible. They serve super expensive champagne, the seats are YUUUUUUGE, they put mattress pads down, and the service COULD NOT be better. These tickets go for $10k+. This is a prime example of using points to purchase a flight for significantly less money.

50k puts you in Cathay Pacific Business Class

Cathay has one of the best reviewed business class products in the sky. I’m hoping to fly them again soon as my experience wasn’t “superb”, but I also recognized that I’m an outlier. For a little over $1000 you could purchase points to fly one way. A fantastic deal, IMO!

And Alaska still has prices that match the old AA chart for Asia. So 62.5k puts you in their biz.

I’ve reviewed AA’s 777-300ER reverse herringbone business class many times and really enjoy it. While I’m not sure I’d spend the extra points to fly it over Cathay, it provides more opportunities for redemption in a very nice product.

American Air Business Class 777-300 ER LHR-LAX Mini Cabin  - 25 of 36

Final thoughts:

I used Asia as an example, but there are other great spots in Alaska’s chart. In fact, Alaska still prices business and first class awards to Europe on AA metal at 50k and 62.5k. That’s a big savings compared to AA prices of 57.5 and 85k, and it’s their metal! There is another sweet spot on flights from the U.S. to the Middle East

I wouldn’t advise buying points for the sake of it. As we saw last year with the Emirates devaluation, point values can erode very quickly. But if you have a trip in mind, see the availability, and these points would help you reach your goals…this is a very good offer and price to make it happen!

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

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Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card


4.8
4.8/5
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based including Hyatt, Southwest, United, IHG, and Marriott.

Welcome Offer

60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months

Annual Fee

$95

Points Earned

Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards

  • 3x on dining
    •  including eligible delivery services for takeout
  • 3x on select streaming services
  • 3x on online grocery purchases
    • (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
  • 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel Portal
  • 2x on all other travel
  • $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Chase Travel
    • The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
  • 10% Anniversary Bonus
    • Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
  • Chase Sapphire Preferred® continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel Portal and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including primary rental car insurance, purchase protections, etc.
  • Points are transferrable to 13 Ultimate Rewards partners
  • Redeem in the Chase Travel center for 1.25 cents per point
  • No foreign transaction fees
  • Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
    • Primary rental car coverage is my favorite

We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.

Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.

Main Cast: 

Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.

Supporting Cast:

Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on. 

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.

If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners

Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.

The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

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