Alaska Mileage Plan implements annual cap on miles purchases

Alaska Mileage Plan is capping the number of miles you can purchase at 150,000 (including bonuses) for non-elite members.

Although Alaska Mileage Plan is unaffiliated with any alliance, they have a large number of airline partners around the world which you can earn and redeem Alaska Mileage Plan miles with. Just yesterday, Aaron wrote about the Alaska Mileage Plan sale where they are currently offering a 40% bonus on all purchased miles.

For as long as I can remember, Alaska Mileage Plan never had a cap on the number of miles you could buy in a year. Well, that’s about to change. As per One Mile At A Time and the Alaska Mileage Plan website, effective immediately, non-Mileage Plan elite members can only buy a maximum of 150,000 Mileage Plan miles per calendar year through Points.com. 

If you are an Alaska Mileage Plan Elite Member, i.e MVP status and above, you are not subject to any caps on the number of Mileage Plan miles you can buy. Here’s a screengrab from the Alaska Mileage Plan “Buy Miles” page which includes the new terms and conditions:

The 150,000 miles cap for non-elites includes bonus miles as it reads “Your Mileage Plan account may be credited up to a maximum total of 150,000 miles acquired through Points.com in a calendar year”. I’ve checked with Alaska on this over Twitter and they have confirmed that the 150,000 points cap does include all bonus miles and that elite members are not subject to these caps.

The cap of 150,000 miles is still rather generous in my opinion, especially if you are using them purely for the JAL trick. One of the great uses of Alaskan miles is to redeem a “round-trip” Business Class flight with JAL to Japan.  This will cost you 25,000 miles per “round-trip”. Even with the 150,000 points cap, you are still able to make 6 “round-trip” journeys to and from Tokyo which is plentiful.

If you need to buy more than 150,000 miles in a calendar year, you can always use your partner’s or friend’s account to buy the miles you need and simply redeem it from their account. I wouldn’t recommend creating multiple accounts as this might trigger bells in their fraud department.

JAL Sky Suite III Business Class | Photo Credits: JAL

Concluding Thoughts

We have been very fortunate over the past few years that the Alaska Mileage Plan program has allowed for the purchase of an unlimited number of miles. This was one of the main features of the Mileage Plan program which many points enthusiasts loved.

The Mileage Plan program is still very useful and there are still reasons to be buying miles through it, even with the new cap imposed.

(H/T: OMAAT)


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Matthew Chong
Matthew Chong
Addicted to luxury travel while trying not to go broke, Matthew is always on the prowl for the best deals in the travel industry. When he's not busy studying, he can be found trawling the internet and reading up on credit cards, airlines and hotels. He also wouldn't mind taking you out on a date.

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Eugene

Does the Alaskan air miles expire? Like for krisflyer they expire in 3 years

Kiwi

Every 24 months without activity. Easy enough to do a rocketmiles stay to extend, points post within 2 weeks so don’t leave it until the last minute to extend.

Low Seow Boon

Matthew. How to become a MPV member as a Singaporean or in Singapore to accumulate 20 000 points? Does shopping in their portal help?

Seow Boon

Aaron. Is there anyway to fly the minimum in Alaska partners to the get the points to achieve 20000 miles to get MPV statues in Alaska program.

Seow Boon

Hi. Matthew. It is possible to do a Mileage Run to achieve 20000 miles in it’s partner program?

Ryan Tan

Hi, if I join as Alaska mileage plan member and purchased the miles to solely book the ‘round trip’ Tokyo tickets , will that be flagged?

Also, I’m actually travelling with a friend to Tokyo on separate dates and I am booking on behalf of him. Will this be flagged too by Alaska airlines?

Heard a few horror stories of ppl’s tickets getting cancelled (esp on emirates tix) due to suspicions on fraud…etc. Would like to know your take on that.

Thanks!!!

– Loyal Reader

Aaron Wong

I’ve never used my Mileageplan account to book anything other than round trip Tokyo tickets, so…

You can book on behalf of anyone with mileage plan

Jody

Hi, account have to be 10days old. 10working days? Or?. I have tried to buy on the 10th day but the miles didn’t credit in. 🙁

Leo

Hi Jody, did you manage to buy miles after 10 days? I’m facing similar problems with newly created account.

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