Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan buy miles bonus is back as a tiered offer that maxes out at 60% when you buy 40,000 or more miles.
With a 60% bonus you’ll be buying Mileage Plan miles for as little as 1.85 US cents plus GST/HST. For sales from Alaska, that’s good price but it’s high when compared to the recent HawaiianMiles bonus we let you know about a few weeks ago. So hopefully you bought during that sale! But if you missed the Hawaiian sale this one is still quite good.
With the program making it relatively easy to redeem at over 2 cents per mile for premium class award flights this can work out to be a good deal. However, if you are no rush to make a redemption the program has previously offered 60 and 70% bonuses so it could be wise to wait for those offer before buying.
The up to 60% bonus
Receive up to 60% Bonus Mileage Plan Miles when you buy or gift miles. This offer is valid until Dec 23, 24 Buy Alaska Miles Here
- Buy 3,000 – 19,000 miles receive a 40% bonus
- Buy 20,000 – 39,000 miles receive a 50% bonus
- Buy 40,000 – 100,000 miles receive a 60% bonus
Does it make sense to buy Mileage Plan miles?
Yes in some cases it does! Those cases tend to be for premium cabin redemptions (business or first class) on Alaska’s partner airlines like JAL, Cathay, Korean and Condor. Although as of late, those best business class redemptions have been really slim pickings via Mileage Plan and have been harder to find. So I would find your award flights first and then buy the miles – not vice versa.
Here is past example of where buying miles could make sense. This is a round trip business class flight between Edmonton and Frankfurt with Condor :
You can redeem 110,000 Mileage Plan miles + US$225.19 for these flights. If you had to buy all 110,000 miles it would cost you US$2069.38 as you would buy 70,000 miles and receive 42,000 bonus miles with the 60% bonus
Convert that to C$, add in the GST on the miles purchase and then the fees on the redemption and you are looking at spending around C$3200 (price is dependent on which province you are in for GST/HST and what US$-C$ conversion rate you get). That’s a big purchase and a lot of money but when you compare it to the actual cost of the flight – it provides over $700 savings over the current price:
Definitely not for everyone but something to consider if you are in the market for this type of opportunity!
Another potential future option will be using the miles for Porter Airlines. Sometime later in 2024 Porter Airlines will become a full redemption partner for Mileage Plan. Once they do we’ll start comparing cash costs vs. mileage amounts and buying miles to see if this will become a viable option!
Click here to learn and/or to buy Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles
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Originally posted on June 12, 2024 @ 2:18 pm