Maybe you’ve heard the rumors, or maybe you haven’t. Buying points can unlock luxury travel at a fraction of the usual cost and turn mundane journeys into first class flying. But, when buying points, you want to make sure you get the best possible price. If you want to buy some miles to book award flights with Alaska Mileage Plan, that time is now. Alaska Airlines is offering up to 50% bonus miles if you buy before September 14th.
If you’re wondering why you might want Alaska miles, its partner airlines are the key to the equation. Alaska Airlines partners with Qantas, Cathay Pacific and Japan Airlines which are among the best airlines in the world. If you want to experience flat beds without the $4,000 — or even $10,000 — price tag, this is an easy way to do it. Throw in some generous routing rules for how you can use your points, and you’re looking at quite a recipe for travel success.
Want some inspiration? Check out some of our top ways to use Alaska Mileage Plan miles to book some amazing flights.
Buy Alaska Miles, Get 50% Bonus Miles
Put simply, Alaska is offering a 20-50% bonus when you buy points. The 50% bonus the highest points bonus they ever offer publicly, so it’s a nice treat when this opportunity pops up. Here’s a quick breakdown of how this tiered bonus works when you buy miles:
Buy | Bonus |
10,000 to 19,000 miles | 20% |
20,000 to 39,000 miles | 35% |
40,000 to 60,000 miles | 50% |
With this limited time promotion, you can purchase 60,000 points for $1,182, or 70,000 points for $1,389. That may mean absolutely nothing to you and sound stupidly expensive for a bunch of silly points, but we’ll show you why it can actually be an amazing way to unlock crazy first class and business class flights on top airlines all around the world.
The only catch: your account needs to be open for 10 days before you can book, so if you don’t already have one, you’ll want tor register now so you can get in on the next big sale.
Also, if you don’t have elite status with Alaska Airlines, you can only buy up to 150,000 miles per calendar year. Of course, 150,000 miles is more than enough for round-trip first class trip across the world. If you have elite status, you can buy as many as you want, so go crazy if the urge strikes you.
Here are a few amazing ways to play these deals.
Cathay Pacific First Class
Hello, luxury. First class on Cathay Pacific is, in a word, baller. Caviar, champagne, gigantic bed and first-rate airport treatment, the works. For $1,389, you can buy 70,000 miles and enjoy a one-way flight between either the US or Europe and Asia. That’s a truly awesome deal. If you don’t have easy access to earning Alaska miles via credit card spend or a ton of work travel on cash tickets, this is about as good as it gets if you want to see the front of the plane.
If you want to take things to the next level, you can include a stopover in Hong Kong and continue onto South Africa, Dubai or somewhere else in Asia for no extra miles. Cathay doesn’t operate a first class cabin to South Africa or Dubai but we won’t be turning down a bonus flight in business class. To book you’ll need to search for award space on British Airways then call Alaska Airlines to book.
Make sure you check out our complete guide to redeeming Alaska miles to learn all the ins and outs of bookings and routing rules.
The same 70,000 miles can be used to fly Qantas first class between the US and Australia. It’s tough to find first class award space but, if you can, jump on it. To book this one, you can simply search on Alaska’s site and complete your booking there.
Asia To Asia – With Stopover
For 25,000 Alaska miles, you can book a one-way business class flight on Cathay Pacific from Tokyo to Jakarta with a stopover in Hong Kong. That’s nearly 10 hours of business class for only $591.25 thanks to a 35% bonus when you buy miles. Check out the cash prices of a one-way ticket on this route sometime and you’ll see why this is a killer deal.
The best part is you can stopover in Hong Kong for as long as you want so you can enjoy all the amazing food and see some sites. You can also book a similar route by flying Japan Airlines instead. In that case, you could fly from Hong Kong to Jakarta with a stopover in Tokyo. Either way, you see some amazing places.
Flights on Japan Airlines can be booked on Alaska’s site. Simply run a multi-city search and you’ll be able to select the flights you want if there’s award space.
Hong Kong To Australia Or New Zealand
Continuing with the Cathay obsession, here’s another fun option if you’re based in Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand or just want to put together a fun around the world trip. You can book a one-way business class flight on Cathay between Hong Kong and a bunch of cities in Australia and Auckland, New Zealand.
Now, you could pay over $2,600 for a one-way business class ticket, but using 30,000 Alaska miles sounds like a much better way to do it if you ask us. During this promo, you can buy just over 30,000 miles for $680. For some context, this flight is longer than many flights between the US and Europe and those often require more than 50,000 miles for a one-way business class ticket. Now, you see why this is an incredible deal.
Don’t forget, you’ll need to find award space on British Airways and call Alaska Airlines to book.
Best Cards To Buy Alaska Miles
Alaska Mileage Plan miles are sold through Points.com, so cards that earn bonus points for purchases with airlines won’t do anything special for you. However, you can earn 2X points per dollar with the Capital One Venture (Learn More), Capital One Spark Miles Business (Learn More) or the Blue Business Plus Card from American Express (Learn More). If you want to save a little extra cash, you can earn 2% cash back with the Citi Double Cash (Learn More).
Final Thoughts
Since award space isn’t always available, we don’t recommend buying speculatively but, if you know how you want to use them, this could be a great deal for you. By taking advantage of the 50% bonus offer, you really can book some business and first flights on some top-tier airlines. If you haven’t tried business or first class yet, it’ll change how you think about air travel.
CX availability on the route HKG-AKL virtually non existent. Believe me I have monitored this for the last two years. It’s alright getting AKL-HKG, close in especially but impossible to get the return leg.