Alaska Air Mileage Plan sale now on again: get up to 40% bonus miles

Works out to an effective 28.6% discount on the miles purchase. Book now until 1 November 2019, 3pm.

Alaska Air is back with a bonus miles promotion for miles purchase – this time round offering a 40% bonus when you buy miles.

Note that the bonus is tiered: you will need to purchase at least 30,000 miles to trigger the 40% bonus.

There is a limit of 60,000 miles that you can buy per transaction, up to a maximum of 150,000 miles (including all bonus miles) per year, per account. This limit is actually rather inconsequential, given that you can redeem air tickets for virtually anyone from any account. Having said that, status holders (MVP, MVP Gold and MVP Gold 75K Mileage Plan) have no annual limit on the number of miles which may be purchased or gifted.

How much will it cost?

At the time of writing, Alaska Air Mileage Plan is selling miles at 2.75 US cents per mile, not including a 7.5% ‘tax recovery’ fee. At a 40% bonus, this works out to 2.11 US cents per mile after taxes.

*Cost of purchasing miles, before tax recovery fee*

What are they good for?

For the uninitiated, Alaska Air has amassed quite a good portfolio of partners to earn and redeem miles on, including Japan Airlines (JAL), Cathay Pacific, Emirates and more.

One of the most widely known sweet spot with this programme is the ability to book a quasi-return trip on JAL in business class for only 25,000 miles. Specific to this promotion, that means you can buy it for US$517.34, which is an absolute steal for a ‘return’ business class trip.

How to book the ‘return’ trip on Japan Airlines:
Japan Airlines (JAL) charges only 25,000 miles for intra-Asia itineraries involving a maximum of 1 stop, to count it as a ‘one-way’ journey. Alaska Air also allows for a stopover, i.e. staying in the intermediate point for more than 24 hours.
Using the rule above, you can technically book something like, Bangkok to Singapore via Tokyo on JAL business class, which will only cost you 25,000 miles because it is technically a one-way itinerary. All you need to do is to buy another (cheaper) ticket to Bangkok to start your journey.
Another sweet spot is that JAL allows for open-jaw booking, so you can booking something like Bangkok-Osaka, then Tokyo-Singapore in a same journey.