Alaska Airlines is offering a 50% elite qualifying miles bonus their own flights January 1 – June 30, 2021. No registration required, and this is a bonus towards elite status qualification and not bonus miles you can spend on award travel.

Alaska changed how elite status is earned for 2021. Instead of requiring more qualifying miles if your status-earning includes partner flights, all qualifying miles count equally and Alaska settled on the lower ‘Alaska-only’ mileage rates for status – but imposed a new minimum number of flights flown on Alaska to earn Mileage Plan elite status.

		MVP		MVP Gold		MVP Gold 75K
Miles or		20,000		40,000		75,000
Segments		30		60		90
Minimum		2		4		6
Alaska Segments

By not ‘reducing the requirements for status’ in 2021, they left open the door to status-earning
promotions. It’s possible to do both of course but was clear they’d have to run qualifying miles promotions. Doing this at the start of the year is more targeted, a bet that the second half of the year will be better, and of course they can run this again later if they need to.

With Alaska’s American Airlines partnership, and membership in oneworld launching at the end of March, status-earning with Alaska is going to be more achievable for many going forward.

And Alaska Airlines still has no minimum spending requirement for elite status, which seemed out of step with the industry (but worked uniquely well for Alaska) before the pandemic) – and now makes more sense than ever with business travel near-zero and fares at uniquely low levels.