Buy Alaska Miles for 2.1 Cents

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Alaska is offering up to 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: IHG a 100% bonus, United had some targeted offers, 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. Earlier in the year I 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 – good til 12/28/17:

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.

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 til the end of the year. 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.

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!