Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan buy miles bonus is back as a mystery bonus that offers up to 60% more miles. Personally, I received an offer for up to a 50% however others are receiving up to 60%.
With a 50% bonus you’ll be buying Mileage Plan miles for as little as 1.97 US cents plus GST/HST and if you get the 60% bonus you are buying them for 1.85 US cents each plus GST/HST/ For sales from Alaska, if you get the 60%, it is definitely an excellent price to buy it, but not the best as have seen 70% bonuses on rare occasions in the past. Plus, can’t compare it to the HawaiianMiles 100% bonus seen last fall that was by far the cheapest way to buy Alaska miles ever but now that Alaska fully owns Hawaiian, I don’t think we’ll ever see that again!
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 if you can redeem for 3 cents or more (C$). However, if you are no rush to make a redemption with those frequent offers for a 60% bonus and on very rare occasions, a 70% bonus – it could be wise to wait for those offer before buying.
The up to 50% bonus
Receive up to 60% Bonus Mileage Plan Miles when you buy or gift miles. This offer is valid until May 21, 25 Buy Alaska Miles Here
The up to 50% bonus offer is broken down as follows:
- Buy 3,000 – 9,000 miles receive a 30% bonus
- Buy 10,000 – 19,000 miles receive a 40% bonus
- Buy 20,000 – 100,000 miles receive a 50% bonus
The up to 60% bonus offer is broken down as follows:
- 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 an example of business class between Montreal and Amman on Royal Jordanian:
You can redeem 140,000 Mileage Plan miles + US$165.45 for these flights. If you had to buy all 140,000 miles it would cost you US$2612.50 as you would buy 95,000 miles and receive 47,500 bonus miles with the 50% bonus
Convert that to C$, add in the GST on the miles purchase and then the fees on the redemption and you are looking at spending around C$4000 (price is dependent on which province you are in for GST/HST and what US$-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 $1,400 savings from 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. We were supposed to Porter Airlines become a full redemption partner for Mileage Plan in 2024 which has been delayed but hopefully we’ll see it here soon. Once they do we’ll start comparing cash costs vs. mileage amounts and buying miles to see if this will become a viable option!
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Originally posted on June 12, 2024 @ 2:18 pm
