Until 31 October, Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan is offering an up to 40% bonus when purchasing miles, so log in your account to see if you can access the offer.
Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan is one of the few ways of purchasing miles cheaply to then redeem on partner airlines like Qantas and Cathay Pacific, and can be useful for cheaper Business Class travel on Qantas and Fiji Airways to the US.
If you’re not familiar with the programme, check out this guide.
Note that, effective January 2019, Alaska has introduced a new calendar year purchase cap of 150,000 miles, which may begin to limit their use, especially for families looking to travel abroad when multiple award seats are available. Alaska elite members are not affected by this cap.
Remember that Alaska accounts need to be ten days old to be able to buy miles, so sign up for one in advance if you like the look of a deal.
The current Alaska Airlines ‘buy miles’ promotion
With the current promo, you can purchase a total of 84,000 Mileage Plan miles (including the bonus) for US$1,773.75, equating to ~2.11 US cents per mile.
Buy miles offers can be targeted, so you may find your offer may be different from others’. Here are the tiers that I received (which may differ to yours):
- Buy 10,000 – 19,000 miles = 20% discount
- Buy 20,000 – 29,000 miles = 30% discount
- Buy 30,000 – 60,000 miles = 40% discount
You can purchase a total of up to 150,000 miles per calendar year (unless you are an elite member, in which case there is no limit).
Note that these miles expire after 24 months of inactivity in your account although with an option to reinstate for a fee.
Example uses of Mileage Plan Miles for travellers from New Zealand
These are my favourite redemption opportunities for cheap Business Class travel from New Zealand with Mileage Plan redemptions:
| Example itinerary | Cost of miles in USD when maximising current promotion |
|---|---|
| Cathay Pacific: 30,000 miles one way from New Zealand to Hong Kong in Cathay Pacific Business Class | $633 |
| Fiji Airways: 32,500 miles one way from New Zealand to Nadi in Fiji Airways Business Class | $685.75 |
| Fiji Airways: 45,000 miles one way from New Zealand to Hawaii in Fiji Airways Business Class | $949.5 |
| Fiji Airways: 55,000 miles one way from New Zealand to the USA Fiji Airways Business Class | $1160.5 |
| Qantas: 55,000 miles one way from New Zealand to the USA in Qantas Business Class | $1160.5 |
| Cathay Pacific: 60,000 miles one way from New Zealand to the USA in Cathay Pacific Business Class | $1266 |
| Korean Air: 125,000 miles RETURN (no one-ways) from New Zealand to the USA in Korean Air Business Class | $2637.5 |
Notes:
- These costs don’t include airline taxes, which are applied by Alaska at the time of redemption.
- The costs above are in USD and based on the current promotion with a best case cost at the highest tier.
- The costs assumes you maximise the promotion and buy chunks of the maximum amount of miles, redeeming strategically to get the most value.
For more prices, check out the Mileage Plan award chart.
As many have found (just read the comments), it’s an easy winner to take advantage of for long haul Business and First Class travel on Alaska Airlines partners such as Cathay Pacific, to Europe and the USA. You can also get great value out of longer domestic Australian redemptions in Business Class on Qantas.
Offer History
Keeping an eye on the rhythm of mileage purchase offers can help you be more informed about when to buy.
| Date | Bonus offer (%) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| October 2019 | 40 | |
| October 2019 | 50 | highest and targeted |
| September 2019 | 50 | highest and targeted |
| July-August 2019 | 50 | highest and targeted |
| June 2019 | 30% discount, not bonus | |
| April-May 2019 | 50 | highest |
| January-February 2019 | 40 | |
| November - December 2018 | 50 | highest |
| August-October 2018 | 50 | highest and targeted but widespread |
| May-June 2018 | 40 | |
| February-April 2018 | 40 | |
| January-February 2018 | 40 | |
| November-December 2017 | 40 | targeted |
| October 2017 | 30% discount, not bonus | Point Hacks exclusive offer, limited to first 2000 buyers |
| August-October 2017 | 50 | highest but targeted |
| May-July 2017 | 50 | highest but targeted |
| February-April 2017 | 40 | |
| January-February 2017 | 40 | |
| November 2016 | 40 | |
| August 2016 | 50 | highest but targeted |
| May 2016 | 50 | highest but targeted |
| February-March 2016 | 40 | |
| November-December 2015 | 50 | highest but targeted |
| August-September 2015 | 40 | |
| July-August 2015 | 35 | lowest |
| March 2015 | 40 | |
| November-December 2014 | 35 | lowest |
| September-October 2014 | 40 | |
| May 2014 | 35 | lowest |
| March 2014 | 40 | |
| December 2013 | 35 | lowest |
| September 2013 | 40 | |
| Average | 43.00% |
Other ways to earn Alaska miles
If you have American Express Membership Rewards points, you can transfer them to Marriott Bonvoy. From there, you can convert your points into Alaska miles. More info on that here.
You can also credit your Qantas, Emirates, Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific flights (amongst others) to Mileage Plan.
Interesting theory – and I was looking at doing this to cover an upcoming trip to Europe. However when checking the award flights, although they show as “business class”, they are actually ‘mixed’ with only some legs of the journey (usually shorter trans tasman legs) actually in business class, some were PE and others were economy. Something to be wary of…
Hi Grant
Thanks for the comments, I am making the presumption here that you have been using the Qantas search engine, and yes searching for any award availability always comes with a few hurdles.
Not being able to search Cathay award availability directly with Alaska is a bit of a pain, but Qantas’ search engine is very useful (apart from the annoying and often critisised habit they have of displaying mixed business class awards)
The best suggestion for searching multi-leg awards is to search availability on each individual sector first, this allows you to identify a single flight with business award availability, take note the details of each flight ask to Alaska to book.
This does however get a little complicated when using the Qantas search engine, as they will let you search AKL-HKG one way but not HKG-LHR or anywhere else in Europe. To get around this use a Qantas’ multi-city award search with flexible dates, search AKL-HKG first city then HKG-? next city. Because you have to whole journey as 2 individual awards with Alaska this gives a bit more flexibility in knowing the connection between each flight doesn’t have to abide by the <24hr rule.
Finally be aware that Cathay release their award availability 12 months out, which gets snapped up pretty quickly on high traffic routes, so if you want guaranteed availability you need to plan that far out.
Conversely that will also often release most unsold seats as award availability a few weeks out, but this can be a bit of a gamble if betting your whole trip on the chance of more showing up last minute.
Sorry for the essay but as you can see it’s not an simple solution but is a doable and great value if you can get it right.
Clayton
I have used both the search engines on Alaska Airways and on Qantas using mileage points as the way to purchase these flights. Qantas says there are available flights using points while Alaska says that there aren’t any flights using points on exactly the same day!
Also in all of my searching I am yet to find a flight from NZ or Australia to the US for less than 225,000 miles on Alaska Airways search engine. Am I missing something here?
Hi Thorin, 225,000 miles sounds awfully high for a one-way flight. That sounds like a return flight for 2 passengers?
Feel free to email me a screenshot of what’s coming up, and I’m happy to take a look for you – [email protected]
I frequently take advantage of Cathay Pacific flights, both to HK, and one upcoming in May all the way through to NYC. So they’re definitely available (albeit with Cathay, you need to book over the phone after having searched for availability through Qantas, and Qantas does often have more seat availability for their own frequent flyers than accessible by members of other programmes).
225,000 mileage points are for a mixture of business and first class. I cannot find any flights from NZ or Australia to the US for anywhere near 55,000 points.
Hi there, thank you for this post. I’ve tried to search for flights between Auckland and Hong Kong on Alaska Airlines’ website, but no matter how many times I tried and which search conditions I set, I still get Error Code: -1580 and couldn’t see any flights available to redeem with the miles. Is there anything I missed or did wrong? Cheers.
Hi John. You have to call Alaska for Cathay Pacific awards. They have a great call centre, which I have used often. I recommend that you use the Qantas site to find award availability in the route. I picked up 5x return tickets to HK in Dec/Jan when Cathay have their 2x flights per day from Auckland, so plenty of availability around that time. Flick me an email at [email protected] if you need any more help.
Hi Daniel thanks for the tips.
I have tried researching flights with Qantas from Auckland to LA and typed in random travel dates (e.g. Feb 2018) only to find that there are no one-way tickets (whether Akl to La, or La to Akl) costing less than 450,000 Qantas points for Business class (not the Business flex)! Am i doing something incorrectly here? When you referred to the mileage plan – is this the Alaskan Airline ones? or are you referring also to the Qantas classic rewards programme?
Sorry for the questions here I am a newbie to this! Thanks
Hi Howard, I tried to send you an email – feel free to get in touch at [email protected], and I’ll try and help you out!
Hi Daniel, thanks for the awesome tips and break down. I’m new to collecting miles, so I essentially have a clean slate to decide which airline mile I want to start collecting.
I would usually fly Cathay Pacific, to visit my family in Taiwan via Hong Kong from NZ. In your opinion is it better to earn Alaska Miles to redeem Cathay Pacific flights, or to earn Asia Miles to redeem Cathay Pacific flights?
Thank you.
Hi Wesley, not a problem! I’m glad you’re enjoying the site.
Ironically enough, I am currently writing this response on-board the Cathay Pacific Auckland – HK service, with my wife, brother-in-law, and in-laws. We redeemed 300,000 Alaska Mileage Plan miles for 5x Business Class seats, with these purchased during their 50% bonus promotion earlier this year. We’re also off to Taiwan to see family 😉
If you’re looking to rely on purchased miles for Business Class, I would opt for Alaska Mileage Plan for sure, but only to redeem for the AKL-HKG return leg, which comes to a bargain 60,000 miles return. The extra return leg between HKG-Taiwan is 45,000 miles, booked separately, and you’d be better off just booking a separate revenue ticket for this leg given it is so short. If you’re relying on miles from everyday spend (e.g. Amex), Asia Miles is your best bet. Though the mileage rates are much higher (120,000 miles return AKL-Taiwan via HK on one ticket), they’re easier to accrue, you have more booking flexibility, and seats will usually always go to Asia Miles members before partners.
Hope this helps, let me know if you’ve got any more questions!
Can you actually search AKL-HKG on CX via the Alaska Air website? AA you can search and then call to book but I can’t even search AKL-HKG. Or should you just call and end up with a hefty phone bill waiting for them to find availability? Haven’t found anything on BA or QF’s site. I’ve never used Award Nexus. Signed up to JAL but Oceania only allowed MEL SYD as cities.
No, you can’t. You should search on the Qantas website for availability. Once you find seats that you’d like to book, call Alaska using Skype of some other VoIP service to keep your costs down, and make sure they can see the same seats. Once they’ve confirmed, you can hang up, purchase miles, and call Alaska again to book.
They’re the steps that I follow each time.
I am planning a trip to Europe via HK (in Sept 2018 so 9 months out from flying) using Alaska points as detailed in this article.
Just a few things to note that others might find useful from my experience so far:
You have to ring the AS line in the US to sign up an account from NZ. It won’t let you do this online. BTW the 0800 NZ contact number listed on the AS site is disconnected so you can’t use that number.
I, in error, tried to buy points on promotion for my partner’s newly opened account. I forgot about the 10 day rule of accounts having to be open. AS sent me a pending notice. Then sent me another notice the next day saying I couldn’t buy the points as the account was too new. However they did charge my credit card, I rang AS and have been told the charge will take 2-3 weeks to reverse. Which is somewhat of a pain.
There is availability AKL-HKG on the CX Thursday flights but then if you are planning to go to EUR there are no connecting flights the next couple of days. The earliest flights with premium availability on CX to EUR are on the following Monday so don’t book AKL-HK if you can’t stay 4 days in HKG till a HK-EUR flight on CX is available.
Tried to transfer over some SPG points, in two lots 60k + 20k to AS. The first lot when through fine. Second lot did not arrive. Spent a lot of time trying to ring between SPG and AS to find out why second lot haven’t deposited. Both companies telling me to ring the other company and the operators having varying degrees of knowledge on how this transfer works. The points have been deducted from my SPG account, for sure. From looking at forums this should be a 48 hour computer process to transfer but I have been waiting 4 days now.
For some reason my second lot haven’t arrived so the whole process is held up now and the 60k I did transfer are now tied up in AS and not usable until the second lot arrive. I’m getting told the standard line that it takes up to 4-7 days to arrive by SPG which I think only happens if there is an issue. Make sure your AS account doesn’t have your middle name there and then request the transfer in SPG without your middle name.
So what I’m trying to say, is, this is not a straight forward process even when you have done a lot of homework and tried to research availability. The AS award redemption rates look good but if you are planning connections using AS awards you need a lot of research to find out realistic availability to get from NZ-EUR.
I hope the award flights showing as available don’t disappear in the meantime or else I’m going to have to write this off as a learning experience.
Just wanted to update. I’ve sorted some of the issues relating to my previous comment.
SPG second lot of points finally arrived 6 days after the transfer request. I would recommend putting in that order early in the week, ie Sunday or Monday, if you want to avoid waiting over the weekend and the transfer taking 6 days to deposit in your AS MP. Also check your middle name is not appearing in the AS profile.
AS has finally removed the charge for the rejected points purchase (due to the account being not open for 10 days). I had to ring them and ask when they were going to do that. That took two weeks to get that refund.
I’m looking around for flight HKG-AKL. I can’t find any direct. I don’t think CX release award availability in their premium cabin for that direct flight HKG-AKL. I can only find -HKG-SYD-AKL using CX and QF. So if you are going anywhere in NZ but AKL it will be a two stop, overnight journey unless you break it with a stopover. I have found BA Avios search engine the best and AS agents seem to be able to see the same CX availability.
All in all quite a steep learning curve, but I’m learning everyday…
One other thing, when looking on AS for awards from the US to EU I’ve found most of the premium award availability is listed as mixed and when you drill down the short haul flight is in the premium cabin and the long haul cabin is in Economy. So expect a lot of searching around. You can usually see where the long haul flight is in premium on the calendar because there are big additional fees on top of the points.
Hi Daniel, thanks for the awesome info and tips. I just have one question, is it possible to book a one way HKG – AKL in business class with a (free) stop over then AKL to Fiji all for 30,000 mileage points? I’m trying to find award space for September but still no luck, I take it CX still releases award space closer to the dep date….
Hi Anthony, nope, 30,000 is what you’ll need for CX AKL-HKG and then any flight to Fiji would need to be booked separately.
Where are you searching for CX award space? I recommend using Qantas to search for space. Once you’ve found some, you need to call Alaska to confirm that they have the same availability. You can then purchase points and call them back straight away to book. They can’t put seats on hold so better to select a departure date that has at least 2 seats available. Though from my experience, if you do it all fairly quickly, then you’ll snag the ones you want. You can only book CX via Alaska over the phone and not online.
Has anyone tried to access the Korean Air J awards via AS to go NZ-US? I can’t find any on the AS site when researching bookings. Is it a matter of using something like awardnexus to see where the Korean air awards are for AKL-Seoul? I tried searching close in and also in a few months time and can’t find anything.
Hi Lesley- are you searching for return?
I got an offer from AS for 10k-19k 20%, 20-29k 30%, 30-60k 40%. I have bought some large amounts last year. Wonder how they determine what offer you get and when you will get offered 50% bonus!! Also I noticed that they extend the offer date without telling you. I thought this was only till 3 July, now it’s 13 July.
I’ve been able to book NZ-HKG, and HKG-EUR return on CX for later in the year in a mixture of J PE and Y. Involves quite a bit of searching on BA for the HKG-EUR leg. So far have MAD-HKG in Y for overnight flight so hoping to change that one nearer the time!! I see Keith recommends awardnexus but I found that could get expensive unless you are experienced and know what you’re doing there.
I’ve been looking for options to go NZ/AU-US. Can’t find anything direct as others have found. Most mixed awards have the long haul in coach. I can find mixed awards that end up being in PE for SYD-SFO or BNE-LAX, however the layover in SYD is 8 hours so I’d have to hesitate on choosing that rather than flying out of AKL.
I did find WLG-SYD-SFO-HNL (with SYD-SFO in PE). Thought I could stopover in SFO and then go on to HNL for 55k miles. Just wondering can someone advise how do I make this cost effective because the leg HNL-WLG to get me home would be a paid one way, which is nearly the same as a return WLG-HNL. You get redirected to the US site when searching one way HNL-WLG on Air NZ site too. Suggestions?
I wouldn’t buy any AS points speculatively to use on CX awards at the moment. There are reports that CX has virtually no availability released close in or even further out. People aren’t sure why this has suddenly changed. It’s on OMAAT and FT CX. I have found that there is no CX J NZ-HKG award availability at all for quite a few months compared to a lot of availability showing up to 22 June 2018. Apparently Asia miles members can’t even find any availability when they log in.
Thanks Ecco – completely agree. I think they’re having some system issues that they’re not publicly acknowledging.
Thanks for the post. I am new to earning and redeeming miles, I have previously flown on Qantas and moved miles over to Alaska mileage . However I am struggling to find any full business class seats for 2 people from Auckland to LAX on alaska website. They are all mixed for the entire this year with business across the tasman and then economy/ premium economy over to LA.
The best I could find was business across the tasman and then first class over to LA but it only showed up when I looked for 1 perseon travelling.
Is this something you have come across?
Regards
Akshay