Up to 40,000 Miles for an Alaska Airlines Visa

Good offers for the Alaska Airlines Visa from Bank of America come and go. One that’s been around since last October is 40,000 miles — 25,000 on approval and 15,000 for spending $2000 every month for a year. That one is available for both the personal and business card.

Now there’s another 40,000 mile offer — this time 25,000 on approval and 15,000 more for spending $10,000 on the card within 6 months.

It’s marketed to Alaska Airlines elite members, but in the past I’ve not heard of difficulty with anyone applying and getting the offer regardless of their status in the Mileage Plan progrma.

As per usual with this card (and with Bank of America cards generally) the annual fee is not waived the first year.

The cards come with an annual $99 companion ticket which is a really good deal, unlike most companion ticket offers you find — there are no capacity controls, if there is a paid seat available on a flight the companion can have it for $99+tax when purchasing one paid ticket.

Sadly, of course, those companion tickets can no longer be used for a first class ticket in conjunction with a paid first class ticket. But they do earn miles!

I really like Alaska Airlines miles because they’ve begun offering one-way awards on nearly all of their partners and brought most booking functionality onto their website. Alaska partners with many of the airlines both in oneworld (like American, Cathay Pacific, Qantas, LAN) and Skyteam (like Delta, Air France, Korean) and also non-alliance airlines like Emirates. While you cannot book first class awards on either Air France or Korean (business is the highest cabin offered) you can book first class even on the A380 on Emirates — though award charts are region-specific and travel isn’t permitted to and from all regions of the world.

I’ve had this card multiple times in the past. I don’t love the spending requirement on it, and I am currently working on some other big spending requirements (next up — the Citi American Airlines Executive card). There have been better offers for the card in the past, like 40,000 miles without the big spending requirement and 50,000 miles as well. But this is the best current offer and from a bank without a ton of attractive cards competing regularly for my attention.

(HT: Million Mile Secrets)


About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  1. Honestly, I don’t think you should bring this “offer” to anyone’s attention. I mean, I got 50,000 miles for a $1000 spend on this card LAST MONTH. So unless somebody had a desperate need for a small number of Alaska Air miles right now, why should they apply?

  2. Any idea of BofA’s willingness to bump the bonus for people that applied recently using crappier offers?

  3. My husband got an email offer for 25K upon approval and 5K for being a BofA customer. Took it even though he already has the card. Not bad- 30K miles for $75.

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