Until 4 October, Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan is offering an up to 50% bonus when purchasing miles, so log in your account to see if you can access the offer.
While this is a ‘mystery bonus’ offer, the top tier is available to quite a lot of members. The last time we saw a bonus this high was 12 months ago.
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 to the US and domestically.
Buying Alaska miles is a great way to fly Cathay Pacific Business Class
One unique feature of Mileage Plan points purchases compared to some other frequent flyer programs is that you can buy an unlimited amount of points.
You’re ‘officially’ restricted to a maximum of four transactions per card however I have not been encumbered by this rule for past purchases.
That means it is possible to fly Cathay Pacific or Qantas to Asia, the US or beyond in Business or First Class for a lot cheaper than regular cash fares.
Remember Alaska accounts need to be around 10 days old to be able to buy miles, so sign up for one in advance if you like the look of this deal.
The current Alaska Airlines ‘buy miles’ promotion
With the current promo, you can purchase a total of 90,000 Mileage Plan miles (including the bonus) for $1773.75 USD, equating to ~1.97 USD 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% bonus
- Buy 20,000 – 29,000 miles = 35% bonus
- Buy 30,000 – 60,000 miles = 50% bonus
The purchase of miles is stackable, so you can buy as many chunks of miles (plus the bonus) as you need.
Note though there is a ‘technical’ limit of four transactions in 30 days on the same credit card which is applied from Points.com who processes the transaction, so use a different card number for more transactions, but with your same Mileage Plan account, and you should be fine.
As mentioned earlier, it is possible that you may not be impacted by this restriction.
Also note that buying Alaska miles does not code as travel spend on a credit card and 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 | $591 |
| Fiji Airways: 45,000 miles one way from New Zealand to Hawaii in Fiji Airways Business Class | $886.5 |
| Fiji Airways: 55,000 miles one way from New Zealand to the USA Fiji Airways Business Class | $1083.5 |
| Qantas: 55,000 miles one way from New Zealand to the USA in Qantas Business Class | $1083.5 |
| Cathay Pacific: 60,000 miles one way from New Zealand to the USA in Cathay Pacific Business Class | $1182 |
| Korean Air: 125,000 miles RETURN (no one-ways) from New Zealand to the USA in Korean Air Business Class | $2462.5 |
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 on previous posts (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 intra-Australia redemptions in Business Class too on Qantas.
Offer History
Keeping an eye on the rhythm of mileage purchase offers can help you be more informed about when to buy. Alaska Airlines maximum bonus is often 40%, however we’ve seen 50% a couple of times now.
| Date | Bonus offer (%) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| August-October 2018 (current offer) | 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 | 41.74% |
About Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan
Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan program is one of the most flexible of the US frequent flyer programs out there, given their partnership with both American Airlines and Delta for mileage earn, of course along with, Alaska Airlines themselves who service the West Coast, Hawaii and over to New York as well.
If you find yourself flying on a range of carriers in the US, banking your miles to Mileage Plan is a fairly savvy strategy.
Outside of the airlines mentioned above, the real opportunity for us in New Zealand & Australia is to redeem Mileage Plan miles for travel on Qantas, Cathay Pacific or Fiji Airways. In full, Mileage Plan partners are (as of August 2018):
- Aer Lingus
- American Airlines
- Alaska Airlines
- British Airways
- Cathay Pacific
- Condor
- Emirates
- Fiji Airways
- Finnair
- Hainan Airlines
- Icelandair
- Japan Airlines
- Korean Air
- LATAM
- PenAir
- Qantas
- Ravn Alaska
- Singapore Airlines
Points redemption opportunities from New Zealand & Australia
The best starting point is the award chart for New Zealand on the Alaska website which details the costs for miles use on Qantas, Fiji Airways, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Korean Air, and American Airlines. From this page, you can use the navigation on the left hand side to look at costs for other regions too.
Alaska Airlines is a bit spotty at allowing / documenting award redemptions and costs for travel outside of North America. In some cases it’s allowed, in others it’s not. If the award chart doesn’t show your route it’s probably not going to be allowed.
And if the booking engine does not yield a result for a search, you’ll need to call Alaska via Skype or similar to confirm availability, and try and research or book over the phone.
Can you add stopovers to an award?
One stopover in an intermediate city is allowed for one way awards, so book your return as two one-ways and you can get stopovers in both directions.
A stopover is where you can break one ticket into two or more flights across different days by stopping in a city that you would fly to anyway along the way. This is only valid where Alaska shows the cost between two regions on an award chart, which then creates a stopover opportunity possible on that routing.
For example, a stopover would be possible on Cathay Pacific from New Zealand to the US via Hong Kong – you’d be able to break the trip free of charge in Hong Kong, when booking a one way award to the US from New Zealand. The same would also apply to flights with Emirates, Fiji Airways, Korea Air, and Qantas.
Opportunities for travel on Qantas
The Qantas award chart to the US for Alaska Mileage Plan looks like this:
Mileage Plan also has an all intra-Australia travel award chart that I haven’t featured here due to its irrelevance for Kiwis. General miles required though all one price – 12.5k miles one way in Economy, 20k miles one way in Business, and return at twice the cost. Unfortunately it’s not possible to redeem Mileage Plan miles for Trans-Tasman flights (unless combined with a flight to the US).
First Class on Qantas’ A380
Opportunities for travel on Cathay Pacific
The Cathay Pacific award chart to the US looks like this:
Alaska do publish mileage costs for travel on Cathay Pacific outside of the US, and you can net a one way Business Class ticket between New Zealand and Hong Kong for a ridiculously cheap 30,000 miles.
You could also redeem Mileage Plan miles for travel in Cathay’s new Business Class
Opportunities for travel on Emirates
The Alaska Airlines Emirates award chart allows for New Zealand – US redemptions, routed through Dubai.
Here’s the New Zealand to US Emirates Mileage Plan award chart:
Opportunities for travel on Fiji Airways
You can fly Fiji Airways Business Class from Auckland to the US with a stopover in Fiji for only 55k miles – while this is the same as Qantas, at least you’ll be flying in the right direction, and Fiji is arguably a nicer place to stay for a few nights than Sydney or Melbourne!
Looking to do an island hop? You can have a stopover in Fiji and then head onwards to Hawaii for 45k miles.
Opportunities for travel on American Airlines
American Airlines fly seasonal direct flights between Auckland and Los Angeles. Their award chart is below:
Not particularly good value when you consider that Business Class on Cathay Pacific will give you a stopover in Hong Kong, and then fly you direct to numerous US cities from there, including Chicago and New York – for 20k miles less. American Airlines might have some value for those flying to a more obscure US location that the other airlines don’t fly to.
Opportunities for travel on Korean Air
Fancy a stopover in Seoul? Providing you’re happy to redeem miles for a return trip, you can fly from Auckland via South Korea to the US for only 5,000 miles more than a return trip via Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific.
Taxes and fees
An example of the fees charged for booking a Qantas business award from Auckland to Los Angeles via Melbourne return:
$166.56 USD isn’t too problematic. A US$25 fee is included and payable per person for each award ticket to Alaska as well; I believe this is $12.50 for one way and $25 for return – this isn’t going to break the bank.
Generally surcharges on Alaska redemptions are very reasonable compared to Asia Miles, Airpoints, Qantas and other programs we are used to here.
Research and Booking techniques
You can search Alaska Airlines partner availability on their own website, however some partners require a call to Alaska directly to research and book. Once again, awardnexus.com is my preferred place to research. Having said that, you can usually research award availability with the partner directly, e.g. via Qantas Frequent Flyer, and then use that info to then book with Alaska as it’s generally the same award seat inventory used between the airlines.
Cathay Pacific availability is notoriously flaky to confirm through many online sources. Even Cathay’s own website shows incorrect availability for external partners, as they make more seats available to their own Asia Miles members. Cathay Pacific flights are also only available to be booked via the Alaska Airlines phone reservations team.
For Cathay, I recommend that you use the Qantas site as a starting point to first search for availability (on all routes, i.e. AKL-HKG, and then HKG-LHR, for example), and then call Alaska Airlines Reservations on 1-800-252-7522 to confirm that they can see the same seats. Do this before you purchase any miles.
Note that while the Alaska website shows an 0800 number for New Zealand, it does not work. I recommend that you use Skype to call the above US number directly.
Once you have confirmed availability, it is then safer to purchase the miles, and then call back to redeem. Do this straight way as Alaska will not put award seats on hold. Miles usually credit very quickly so assuming you have confirmed availability, this method should work out alright (assuming of course no one else grabs it in the meantime), and has for me at least half a dozen times.
Conclusion
I rarely buy miles to hold and use at a later date without planned travel. However, for tickets I know I want to buy, with specific dates and routes in mind, I would definitely research cost and availability through Mileage Plan as this is a great lower cost option for securing Business and First Class redemptions on a range of familiar carriers.
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.