Buy Alaska Mileage Plan miles with up to a 50% bonus

From now till 23 December 2022, 3.59 p.m SGT, Alaska Mileage Plan is offering up to a 50% bonus on miles purchases. 

This is almost certainly going to be the last Mileage Plan sale we see before a potential year-end devaluation, so if you’re buying miles, be sure to use them straight away!

Buy Alaska Mileage Plan miles with up to 50% bonus

Check your Mileage Plan offer

Alaska Mileage Plan miles bonuses are tailored to each member, and you’ll need to sign-in to your account via this link to check what bonus you’ve been targeted for.

My 50% bonus is tiered like this:

• Buy 3,000-9,000 miles: 30% bonus (2.27 US cents/mile)
• Buy 10,000-19,000 miles: 40% bonus (2.11 US cents/mile)
• Buy 20,000-100,000 miles: 50% bonus (1.97 US cents/mile)

The highest-ever bonus we see is 60%, but that’s targeted and some people never get it. I’d say a 50% bonus is certainly worth considering, provided you have an immediate plan to use those miles.

Mileage Plan members can buy a maximum of 100,000 miles (pre-bonus) per transaction, and a maximum of 150,000 miles (also pre-bonus) per year. MVP, MVP Gold, and MVP Gold 75K members have no such cap.

However, since Mileage Plan tickets can be redeemed for anyone, there’s nothing stopping a family member from opening another account, buying miles and redeeming them on your behalf.

Is it worth buying Alaska Mileage Plan miles?

Alaska Airlines joined oneworld on 1 March 2021, and has been progressively rolling out award redemptions on oneworld partner airlines. 

Unfortunately, the redemption rates for Qatar Airways, Iberia, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian and Malaysia Airlines are poor. SriLankan Airlines offers somewhat better value (40,000 miles in Business Class from Singapore to Colombo with no fuel surcharges), but travel to/through Colombo might not be the wisest idea at the moment.

That said, the legacy sweet spots for Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific remain- for now. It’s possible (likely even) that these will be nerfed at the end of 2022 when Alaska rolls out its unified award chart. 

There’s still time to make hay, so here’s some ideas for redeeming Alaska miles. 

Japan Airlines

Japan has now fully reopened to visitors, and the opportunity to redeem 25,000 miles for a one-way Business Class ticket to Japan is very good value indeed. If you’re having difficulty finding awards from Singapore to Tokyo, a simple trick is to search for award space to places like KIX, ITM, or CTS instead. That will bring up options that transit through NRT/HND, and whether or not you take the final leg is up to you.

You can read more about this in the article below. 

How to find award space to Tokyo on Alaska Mileage Plan

Other sweet spots include 65,000/75,000 miles for a one-way Business/First Class award between Singapore and the USA.

Cathay Pacific

 Alaska Mileage Plan charges just 50,000/70,000 miles for a one-way Business/First Class award between Singapore and the USA on Cathay Pacific. 

Review: Cathay Pacific B77W First Class HKG-SFO

Alternatively, you can fly between Singapore and Tokyo for 22,500 miles on Cathay Pacific. Unlike the Japan Airlines option above, however, you’ll have to do a stopover in Hong Kong. 

Cathay Pacific does have limited connectivity to Singapore at the moment, although with Hong Kong’s reopening that should hopefully improve in the weeks to come.

While booking Cathay Pacific awards with Mileage Plan used to require calling up customer service, online booking functionality has since been added.

Others

Alaska Mileage Plan has a wide variety of redemption partners, some of which may be useful for flying point to point outside of Singapore: 

Other sweet spots you can consider include:

• 55,000/70,000 miles for a one-way Business/First Class award between Australia and the USA on Qantas
• 70,000 miles for a one-way Business Class award between Europe and the USA on Finnair
• 120,000 miles for a round-trip Business Class award between Singapore and Hawaii on Korean Air (one-way redemptions not allowed)

There are no fuel surcharges on Mileage Plan awards, except on British Airways, Hainan Airlines, and Icelandair.

What are Mileage Plan’s change fees?

One great thing about Alaska Mileage Plan is it no longer has any change or cancellation fees for award tickets, which gives you the option to lock in speculative awards, and change them as needed.

Should you need to cancel, you’ll get the full amount paid back, less a US$12.50 partner award booking fee (charged each way, i.e. US$25 for a round-trip booking).

When do Mileage Plan miles expire?

Alaska Mileage Plan miles do not expire.

However accounts which have been inactive for more than two years will be automatically locked. Should that happen, you’ll need to contact Guest Care to verify your identity, following which the account will be reactivated with all miles intact.

What card should I use?

Purchases of Alaska Mileage Plan miles are processed by Points.com in USD (i.e. they won’t code as airline transactions). Here’s the best cards to maximize the miles earned on your purchase:

Card	Earn Rate	Remarks
Citi Rewards Apply	4 mpd	Cap of S$1K per s. month
UOB Visa Signature Apply	4 mpd	Min S$1K, max S$2K FCY spend per s. month
SCB Visa Infinite Apply	3 mpd	Min spend S$2K per s. month
UOB PRVI Miles Apply	2.4 mpd	No cap
S. Month= Statement Month | C. Month= Calendar Month

Remember, you can always pair the Citi Rewards Card with the Instarem Amaze Card to earn 4 mpd on Points.com purchases, without foreign currency transaction fees. 

I generally don’t advise using the DBS Woman’s World Card for Points.com purchases, as past data points have indicated issues with getting the bonus points credited. 

Conclusion

Alaska’s latest Mileage Plan sale offers up to a 50% bonus, and is probably the last one before we discover what its new award charts have in store.

If you intend to buy miles under this sale, be sure to redeem them immediately. There’ll always be an opportunity to buy more miles in the future, but the sweet spots may not always be there!