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Alaska Air and Finnair partner up
I’m consistently impressed with how Alaska continues to enrich their program with valuable partnerships. Not only do they improve their loyalists ability for redemptions to far off lands, but they enhance their ability to earn CRAZY miles as well. Annnd, they’ve done it again. Alaska announced that they will be partnering up with Finnaair and you can start earning MileagPlan miles effective, May 22nd ( the date of their press release.) Not only will it be great to have another partner to redeem miles on ( Finnaair’s A350 looks pretty dope), but it gives even more options to EARN valuable Alaska Air miles. Let’s take a look at the new Alaska Air and Finnair partnership.
Alaska Air has already included Finnair on their list of partners.
Within the past year they’ve added Japan Airlines, Finnair, and Condor. Great moves!
The announcement comes in advance of the new SFO to HEL route Finnair which starts on June 1st.
It’ll operate an A330 on this route configured 1-2-2 and 2-2-1…that means Throne seats similar to Swiss Biz.
The aspect of the partnership that caught my eye were the SUPERB earn rates
Additional Business Class bonuses are 100%. This is on top of base miles, class of service, and any elite status you’d earn. That’s a fantastic earn rate…
There are currently outstanding deals out of Europe to Asia via Finnair…even flying on the A350 from Helsinki to Beijing
Alaska Air has one of the best status matches out there. I matched from AA’s Executive Platinum to MVP 75. If I were to fly the route above…which comes to roughly $1650 I’d earn over 33k redeemable miles and 11,800 EQM. Not a mileage run opportunity, per se, but not too shabby either!
If you’d like to read the official press release, go here…
The redemption chart for Finnair will be released later this year, but I’m optimistic it will be quite competitive, and most of all…I think it provides more ways to earn one of the most valuable currencies out there, Alaska Air Mileage Plan miles.
Check here to see if you were targeted to earn a 50% bonus on purchased Alaska Air miles.
*featured image is from alaskair.com
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.
Welcome Offer
60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months
80k offer in branch currently – I think this should be online soon
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
Super solid welcome offer.
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.
- 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 Ultimate Rewards – Chase Travel Portal
- $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Ultimate Rewards/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
There is currently an 80k offer after $4k spend in 3 months available in branch, and up to 90k after $6k spend in 6 months. I suspect some version of this will be online soon if you don’t want the hassle of going into a branch.
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 60k is a very, very good offer. 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.