Category Archives: Alaska Airlines

Alaska Airlines Credit Card – This One Also Comes with Lounge Passes (Oops – Only for Canadians)

Posted by on April 24, 2012 7 comments

Card churners are quite familiar with the Alaska Airlines Visa Signature card because of its churnability and its $99 companion airfare certificate that can be used even on first class fares. The current best bonus on the card is for 25,000 miles after first purchase (though last year it was up to 40k, and even last month was at 35k.)

I haven’t heard anyone speak of the Alaska Airlines Platinum Plus Mastercard (application here – not an affiliate link.) It’s also Bank of America, and has the same terms as the Visa Signature, but in addition to the 25,000 mile signup bonus and $99 companion ticket, you also get 2 FREE BOARD ROOM LOUNGE PASSES, a perk not available with the Visa Signature version of the card. Both cards do come with a $75 annual fee, though. I believe the 25k bonus is ONLY through the link I found above. (SORRY ABOUT THIS – IT’S ONLY FOR CANADIANS. MY BAD…CARRY ON)

In addition, I know people have been excited about new Chip & Pin cards – this one also has Chip & Pin, which provides an added level of security (and allows you to buy train tickets at kiosks in Amsterdam, from what I can tell.)

And since I’m talking about Alaska Airlines cards, I also never hear anyone mention the Alaska Airlines Visa Business card (application here). 20,000 miles on first purchase ($75 fee), but it also comes with the $99 companion certificate, which could be very, very useful if you’re a family of 4 and need 2 companion certificates to get wherever it is you were planning on going. (THIS IS NOT JUST FOR CANADIANS…)

Apparently It’s Avios Week, So Here Are 2 Great Ways to Use Those Points on Alaska Airlines

Posted by on April 16, 2012 8 comments

Avios Theme Week ™ amongst us travel bloggers is apparently continuing this week, so I thought I’d throw out some great redemption ideas. Or pretty good redemption ideas (I don’t want to oversell this).

I’ll add to this discussion of using Avios points by noting the great values available when you use them to redeem on some Alaska Airlines routes. Avios doesn’t impose fuel surcharges on Alaska Airlines flights. For example:

Nonstop flights from the West Coast to Hawaii on Alaska are only 25,000 miles round trip in coach and 50,000 in first class. That sure beats spending 40k/75k Alaska Mileage Plan miles or 45k/75k AAdvantage Miles for those flights. Alaska has extensive service to 4 islands from up and down the West Coast.

Flights from California to their strong Mexico network are just 20k/40k round trip (coach/first). Flights from Seattle are just a bit more at 25k/50k, all surcharge-free. Alaska charges 35k/65k using their own miles.

And I believe that will conclude my Avios Theme Week contribution.

Contributions from others include:

For those who didn’t see, One Mile at a Time wrote about how you can use Avios points on Aer Lingus to fly Boston-Dublin for 25k miles round trip in coach (or 50k in business class). The comments section is worth reading, as they commenters are roughly as excited as audience members in the Oprah “You Get a Car You Get a Car You Get a Car” episode.

And a callout to Million Mile Secrets for showing how you can exploit the lack of fuel surcharges on flights out of Brazil to redeem Avios points for fuel surcharge-free tickets from North America to Europe – if you fly from New York to Brazil to London you can avoid the fuel surcharges. It’s a great strategy for those who want the free stopover in Brazil and then continue on to Europe. Or for people who want to fly for 23 hours to go from NY to London.

I Found a Link for the Alaska Airlines Credit Card with a 35,000 Mile Bonus (DEAL EXPIRED)

Posted by on April 8, 2012 7 comments

Among all the credit card bonus craziness this week, several people have re-posted a link from Flyertalk for a 30,000 miles bonus on the Alaska Airlines Visa Signature card. This was exciting because the bonus had been at 25,000 miles for quite some time. This was less exciting because the bonus had been 40,000 miles last year.

Better news: I just found a link for 35,000 bonus miles with signup for the Alaska Airlines Visa Signature Card. Same deal as always: $75 annual fee (not waived). Comes with $99 companion ticket good on all fares classes (including first class tickets). Lots of people report this card to be churnable.

And, if you’re new to Alaska Airlines, check out this post where I call Alaska’s Mileage Plan the most underrated frequent flyer program. Alaska miles can be redeemed on American, Delta, KLM, Air France and more.

Take a screenshot of the application page just to be safe…

(I do not get an affiliate referral for this card).

Alaska Airlines $99 Companion Ticket No Longer Good for First Class

Posted by on March 11, 2012 No comments

(Yes, I first saw this on THIS MILEPOINT THREAD)

One of the reasons people LOVED (or at least really liked) the Alaska Airlines Visa card was that you received a certificate good for a $99 companion fare that could be used on any fare class. In other words, you could buy a first class ticket and get a second first class ticket for $99. This made for a fantastic deal on flights to Hawaii, for example.

Well, those days are now officially over. Alaska (or Bank of America, their credit card partner) has changed the rules (see here) and that companion certificate is now only good for coach fares.

Does that make it worthless? No, of course not. But it does cut down significantly on the value of that perk. Add to that the rather sad 25,000 mile signup bonus, and you’ll have a lot of disappointed Alaska Airlines cardholders out there (you get the certificate each year).

UPDATE: (NEVER MIND). It’s still good on first class – BofA put the wrong copy on their site. Carry on.

Double Miles on Select Alaska Airlines Routes

Posted by on September 6, 2011 No comments

I’ve been talking about how great Alaska Airlines’ frequent flyer plan is so I thought I’d pass along this promo that offers double miles on select routes. Fly by November 15th between these cities:

Seattle & Long Beach or Edmonton
Los Angeles & Mazatlan, Mexico City, Guadalajara, or Vancouver
San Francisco & Palm Springs, Los Cabos, or Puerto Vallarta
San Jose & Los Cabos
Portland & Boise or Los Angeles

A Reminder About the Most Underrated Frequent Flyer Program: Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan

Posted by on August 31, 2011 5 comments

This isn’t new news, but I wanted to call out one of the most (if not the most) underrated frequent flyer programs out there — Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan. If you’re not familiar with Alaska’s program (and if you don’t live in the Pacific Northwest, you may not be), the biggest benefit of their program is that they have a wide range of partners across alliances.

In fact, their partner airlines are so vast that by crediting points to Mileage Plan you are essentially getting the best of SkyTeam (if there is such a thing) and the best of OneWorld in one program. Alaska partners with Delta, KLM, Air France and Korean from SkyTeam and with American, LAN, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas from OneWorld. They also have partnerships with independents Icelandair and Air Pacific.

How is this useful? I think most frequent flyers try to consolidate their travel within one alliance, but sometimes that’s simply not possible, either because of the destination or corporate travel-related restrictions. If you’re a Onepass person (like me) you may still find yourself on Delta or American once in a while (as I do). Crediting those miles to Alaska will allow you to build up points within one program faster than if you sometimes credit to Delta and sometimes credit to American.

Alaska will give you Elite status on Alaska even if you earn miles on partner airlines. Sure, they offer Elite status at 20,000 miles if you only fly on Alaska, but if you fly on partner airlines you’ll still be able to earn Elite status at 25,000 miles even if you earn the miles on partner airlines. Elite status (MVP – their lower level) gets you unlimited upgrades not only on Alaska, but also on Delta (upgrades at 48 hours out on cheap tickets on Alaska and day-of on Delta). MVP Gold (40k miles flown on Alaska and 50k miles on partner airlines) gets you instant upgrades on a wider range of fares and a 72-hour upgrade window on other fares.

So yes, you can get Delta upgrades by flying on American.

When redeeming on American Airlines, you can take advantage of American’s off-peak award tickets to Central & South America as well as Europe, which offer roundtrip coach tickets to Europe for just 40,000 miles.

That’s a lot of flexibility both on the earning side (where you can earn on their partners – though some, KLM for example, do have restrictions on earning on the cheapest fares) and on the redemption side. For those who have to fly non-Star Alliance airlines, it’s a great place to earn your miles.

The biggest knock is that you can only use one partner on redemptions. So you cannot create a reward trip using both Delta and KLM (though you can use Alaska and 1 partner). That does knock out some of the more complex itineraries, but still – it’s not a huge drawback for most people.

Alaska does have a credit card (see here), though right now they’re only offering 25,000 bonus miles. From time-to-time they offer 40,000 bonus miles and the card is reportedly churnable every 4 months or so, which is helpful.

See the latest Amex promo codes to earn 75,000 bonus Membership Rewards Points.

Credit miles easily and save big on your flights with an Alaska Airlines credit card.

An Introduction to Earning Miles (Even Without Flying), Part 3: Earning Miles Every Day

Posted by on August 9, 2011 2 comments

Read Part 1
Read Part 2

Today we’re wrapping up our introduction to earning miles without flying by looking at credit cards you’d use every day.

Much of the year my credit card spending is tied up with cards that I’m trying to hit a minimum spend on so I can earn a bonus (right now, I’m finishing up the spend on my Chase Sapphire Preferred card, and I’ll be starting the $1,500 spend for my Citi AA Visa card soon). But when I’m not working on a bonus, my daily card is the Starwood Preferred Guest Amex (apply here for personal card and here for business card). You do not actually need a business to apply for the business card – a sole proprietorship (ie, you being yourself) counts. Your spouse can also get his/her own cards and bonuses associated with each. The nice thing there is that Starwood has “household accounts” allowing you to transfer miles freely between accounts as long as you and your spouse have the same address. Right now, Starwood is offering a bonus of 10,000 miles for getting the card and 20,000 additional miles once you spend $4,500 in 3 months (first year fee waived, $65 thereafter). Assuming you’re plowing spend onto that, between you and your spouse you can earn 120,000 Starwood points with $18,000 in spend. That may seem like a crazy amount to you – don’t worry about it if it is. That 10,000 mile bonus is still pretty good, plus there are other reasons to get the card.

Why am I a fan of the Starwood card? First off, earning Starwood points through stays at Starwood hotels is a bear. If you’re not an elite member (and if you spend $30k/yr on this card they’ll give you Gold status, which isn’t worth much, but there ya go), you’ll earn 2 points for every dollar spent for stays at Starwood hotels, meaning a $150 hotel room earns you 300 points. Good luck getting a free room when a decent room at a “category 4″ Westin costs 10,000 points a night. However, with even a modest amount of spend you’ll be getting free nights pretty quickly since you earn 1 point for each dollar of spend on the card.

Secondly, and perhaps most impressively, Starwood points transfer into airline frequent flyer programs at a 1:1 ratio (except for Continental, which gives a sad 1:2 – ie, half – ratio) and LAN which offers a 2:1 ratio, but that’s primarily because their program is in kilometers, not miles (read details on maximizing the LAN transfer here). Moreover, they give a 5,000 point bonus for 20,000 mile transfers, meaning that if you transfer 20,000 miles to, for example, Alaska Airlines, you’ll actually get 25,000 miles in the account. Doing the math, you’ll see that you’re actually earning 1.25 airline miles for every dollar of spend. Great, right?

On the hotel redemption side, Starwood has a really wide range of hotels including nicer ones on the low end (Aloft/Element) and amazing ones on the high end. With the Cash and Points program you can find yourself in a Category 4 (ie, a regular Westin, roughly) for just $60 + 4,000 points instead of 10,000 points. It’s a great deal.

There are a couple of minor drawbacks to the SPG card: if you travel internationally they do charge you a foreign transaction fee. That is, frankly, annoying. Also, if you do a transfer from points to an airline program it can (though not always) take days or, in a few cases, weeks for those points to show up. That may not matter, but if you’re looking at a quick trip, that’s not going to work for you.

Other folks I respect (ie, here) love the American Express Premier Rewards Gold card (see here). It offers a 15,000 point bonus with Membership Rewards after a $1,000 spend in months. Annual fee is $175, though it’s waived the first year. People like that it earns double points on gas and groceries and triple points on airfare. If you are able to buy your business travel flights on your own credit card, this may be a good option for you as a day-to-day card (ie, my occasional $5,000 business class ticket to Europe would earn me 15,000 Membership Rewards points just from the purchase). I find the $175 annual fee to be excessive for my spending habits (I’m actually not permitted to put my business travel on a personal card).

The Membership Rewards points, though, are a great program because of the flexibility of the points. Sure, you can transfer them on to gift cards (generally at a 100 points – to – $1 ratio), but the real benefits come from the flexibility to transfer points into great programs like Aeroplan and ANA (that Air Canada and the former All Nippon Airways, respectively). People love Aeroplan because they offer some pretty great redemption options (90,000 miles for business class to Europe, though they’ve recently changed their award chart to be less valuable) – see here for details, and they love ANA because with their distance-based rewards you can get some great values (63,000 ANA miles for a business class ticket on Virgin to London which until recently did not require Virgin’s outrageous fuel surcharges). That flexibility is quite valuable, as you have a much wider range of airlines to choose from when making a reward booking.

Finally, The Points Guy has been saying that the Chase Sapphire Preferred card is the best for everyday spend because foreign fees are waived, you have the flexibility to spend the Chase points on airfare on a 1:1.25 basis (ie, 10,000 points gets you $125 worth of airfare), or you can transfer on a 1:1 basis to Continental, and because you get a 7% bonus on all your spend at the end of the year. That all said, I still think SPG is more valuable because of the flexibility to use those points at Starwood hotels or on a bunch of different airlines. However, if you travel internationally a lot, the Chase card may make more sense because they are not charging you a ridiculous 3% fee on foreign transactions. You’ll have to do the math yourself to determine whether it’s worth it to you.

An Introduction to Earning Miles (Even Without Flying), Part 2: The Credit Cards

Posted by on August 8, 2011 12 comments

(View Part 1)

Welcome back to part 2 of the OTR introduction to earning miles without flying.

Today we’re looking at what credit cards would make the most sense for someone new to the credit card churn game.

As with so many choices around frequent flyer programs, I would normally say that what cards are best for you will depend on a number of factors. Except that if you have no airline-related credit cards, you should run out right now and apply for 2 Citibank American Airlines AAdvantage cards. I’ve written about the details here, but in short you can get 2 Citi cards (one Visa and one Amex) that earn 75,000 miles each after spending $1,500 on the Visa and $4,000 on the Amex within 6 months. First year fee is waived on both. And remember, your spouse can apply for each of those cards as well, which would give you 300,000 AA miles after $11,000 in spend. Read the post I linked to for details on how to apply.

I know that for some people $11k in 6 months is a lot of money. If that’s the case, start with the Visa. Spend $1,500 on it (and your spouse should spend $1,500 on it as well) and you’ve got 150,000 miles. That’s 6 domestic coach tickets. Don’t be disappointed about missing the other miles – you can easily drive yourself crazy worrying about the miles that got away. That’s an important part of this – you are going to miss some points earning opportunities. Don’t let it drive you nuts. Let it go and enjoy the 150,000 miles.

You can re-apply for the same Citi cards and earn another bonus 18 months after your last application.

If you’re a Continental/United flyer you have a bit of a decision to make about your next card. Chase is offering a 40,000 point bonus with their Sapphire Preferred card when you spend $3,000 in 3 months (apply here). Chase touts the ability to use those 40,000 points to get $500 in credit toward any type of travel. That’s fine, but the real benefit is in the ability to transfer those 50,000 points into your Continental OnePass account (you can transfer to Marriott and Priority Club as well, but the Continental miles are more valuable in my opinion). First year fee is waived. Also, if you travel overseas quite a bit, they waive foreign transaction fees, which can be 3% or so (I believe only the British Airways Visa card offers the same benefit).

If you can manage to spend $3k in addition to the spend you’re trying to generate for the American Airlines cards, go for the Sapphire Preferred card next. Also, that 50k point bonus is a limited offer, and I don’t yet know when it will be withdrawn. If you can swing it, I’d go for that (in fact, I have gone for that).

If, however, it’ll be difficult for you to pull off the $3k in addition to the other spend, Continental and United are both offering the same 40,000 mile bonus on their credit cards. Well, they say 40,000 miles but for our needs, you’ll likely only earn 25,000 miles. They’ll give you 25k miles for first purchase, then 5,000 for adding an additional cardmember (which you won’t do since you and your spouse should get their own cards and own bonuses), then 10,000 miles for spending $25k in one year (which I don’t recommend doing because I’m going to recommend a different day-to-day card.) They’ll also waive the fee in the first year and give you 2 airport club passes. (Apply for Continental OnePass Plus here, and apply for United Mileage Plus Explorer here.)

Chase is offering Continental and United elite members 60,000 mile bonuses, so it’s worth logging into your accounts on the airlines’ websites to see if you’ve received that offer. Both airlines have offered larger bonuses in the past so I’m not jumping on these. Plus, I’ve had Continental cards and United cards in the past, and it appears that makes me ineligible for the bonus anyway.

One thing to remember: you can only apply for one Chase card every 30 days, so you can’t get the Sapphire Preferred card, Continental card and United card all at the same time – you’ll have to space it out.

Delta, US Airways and Alaska aren’t currently offering anything beyond their regular signup bonuses (Delta is 20,000 miles – apply here; US Airways is up to 40,000 miles here; and Alaska is 40,000 miles (apply here). Some folks like the Alaska card because it comes with a certificate for a $99 companion ticket which, unlike many such certificates, is actually good on any flight, including first class flights. I’d wait for better bonuses on Delta and US Airways unless you need the points now.

Regardless of what cards you get, you need – NEED – to create a spreadsheet to keep track of what cards you’ve had, what you’ve spent, and when you need to cancel them. I set up calendar items in Outlook to ping me when I have to cancel. Citicards can be canceled through your online account by sending a secure message. They’ll cancel it for you that way. With Chase cards you’ll need to call them. Sometimes you’ll be offered a retention bonus, though this is often in exchange for paying the annual fee. You’ll be able to determine whether that’s worth it for you. I’ve never been given a retention offer, which for some reason offends me in the same what that George Costanza was offended when the carpet cleaners/cult did not try to recruit him.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about my favorite day-to-day card and American Express Membership Rewards.

(Read Part 3)

How Can I Get an Award Ticket on Icelandair If I’m Not a Saga Club Member?

Posted by on July 25, 2011 No comments

Quick hint for anyone looking to use frequent flyer miles to get to Iceland: Sure, you have a couple of more weeks to use up those Skymiles for Delta’s certain-to-be canceled summer-only service from JFK to Keflavik. But if you want to go any other time of the year, you’re stuck with Iceland Express (no frequent flyer program) or Icelandair.

Although Icelandair has their own frequent flyer program (Saga Club) and limited partnerships, one of those partners is Alaska Airlines. You can use 50,000 Mileage Plan points for a roundtrip coach ticket to Iceland on Icelandair (coach tickets to Europe are only 55,000 miles. Business Class tickets are 75k and 80k for Iceland and Europe, respectively, though their business class is akin to what you’d find on a domestic flight up front.)

If you don’t have Mileage Plan points, they’re a transfer partner of Starwood Preferred Guest (yet another reason to get the American Express Starwood credit card), so you’ll get the 5,000 mile bonus for every 20,000 points transferred, allowing you a ticket to Iceland for only 40,000 SPG points. Not too shabby.

Now, Icelandair’s winter and spring fares are not that expensive, so this may not be the best use of those 40k SPG points, but who am I to tell you that you should lay out cash instead of using those points you’ve acquired? It’s also a nice backup to Europe if your larger airlines aren’t showing availability.

Religious Jews’ Tefillin (Once Again) Causes Flight to Be Met By FBI Agents

Posted by on March 13, 2011 No comments

Pilots on an Alaska Airlines flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles became (for lack of a better word) freaked out when Jewish passengers on their plane began putting on tefillin (small boxes that Jews tie around their arms with leather straps and which contain prayers).  The plane was met at LAX by FBI and other law enforcement, who questioned the passengers upon landing.  They decided they were simply religious Jews and let them go.

This is not the first time this has happened – last year a similar mix-up occurred on a US Airways flight to Louisville.

At this point, airlines should probably tell pilots that just because someone with a beard is saying prayers that they are not planning on blowing up the plane.