Alaska Airlines may not be especially well known, and it does not have a huge partner list. However, its partners span both oneworld and SkyTeam, include quite a few excellent airlines, and Alaska is also the only North American airline that can earn miles mutually with Hainan Airlines (the only Skytrax five-star airline among China’s four major airlines)! Today, OneMoreDay will give a brief introduction to the Alaska Airlines mileage program.

If you want to earn AS miles, you first need an AS frequent flyer number. Go to the AS website, click "SIGN IN" in the upper right corner, then choose “Don't have an account?” from the drop-down menu. Fill in your personal information to register.

[Update 3/26] From now through 4/30, if you register for an AS account through this link and fly one AS or Virgin America flight by 9/30 and credit it to your AS account, you can earn a 5,000 AS mile bonus!

From now until 4/6, buying AS miles on the official website can get you up to a 40% bonus, for an effective cost of 2.11 cent/mile. Considering the high redemption value of AS miles, this deal is quite good. Details are below:

Since AS mileage sales are processed through points.com, you can also get 4% cash back by going through TopCashback:

If you do not yet have a TopCashback account, feel free to use this blog’s TopCashback referral link ($5 signup bonus). Thank you for supporting US Credit Card 101.

Which airlines can earn AS miles

Unlike the other three major U.S. airlines, Alaska Airlines does not belong to any airline alliance. But it does partner with major players from both oneworld and SkyTeam. Below are Alaska Airlines’ partners:

As the chart shows, AS has partnerships not only with soon-to-be-merged Virgin America (VX), but also with oneworld carriers AA, British Airways, LAN, Japan Airlines, Cathay Pacific, and Qantas; SkyTeam carriers Delta, Aeromexico, Air France/KLM, and Korean Air; plus non-alliance airlines Emirates, Fiji Airways, and the newly added Hainan Airlines. The number of partners may not be large, but the quality is excellent. In Skytrax ratings, the most authoritative ratings in the airline industry (based mainly on passenger satisfaction with airline service), these partners include two five-star airlines (Hainan Airlines and Cathay Pacific) and as many as eight four-star airlines (Air France, KLM, British Airways, Emirates, Japan Airlines, Korean Air, Qantas, and Virgin America). This means that if you fly any of these high-quality airlines, you can earn Alaska miles (with earning rates depending on fare class). Conversely, you can also redeem Alaska miles for flights on these excellent airlines as well (and the sweet spots are plentiful; for details, see Introduction to Alaska Airlines Miles (2) – Redeeming Miles and Introduction to Alaska Airlines Miles (3) – Redeeming Hainan Airlines Flights). You can check the earning chart for each partner airline on this page by clicking each airline’s logo.

It is worth noting that the AS–Delta partnership will end on May 1. After that, flights on either airline can no longer be credited to the other’s mileage program, and miles from one program can no longer be used to redeem flights on the other.

Earning rates for AS flights and little-brother flights

Earning chart for AS-operated flights:

Earning chart for little-brother Virgin America (VX) flights:

As you can see, all paid fare classes earn at 100%. If you frequently fly AS or VX, earning AS miles is a very good option.

Earning highlight #1: distance-based mileage earning

As many readers know, Delta and American Airlines now use new mileage earning methods under which the Delta/AA miles you earn are tied to the ticket price. If you choose to credit cheap Delta/AA tickets to Asia back to AS, which still awards miles based on distance, you may come out ahead.

Below is the earning chart for American Airlines:

Below is the earning chart for Delta Air Lines:

Let us use the following ticket as an example:

If you credit it to AA, a non-elite member would earn only 636*5=3180 AA miles. If you credit it to AS, the one-way distance of EWR-DFW-HKG is 9495 miles. The outbound in O class would earn 9495*0.25=2374 miles, and the return in N class would earn 9495*0.5=4748 miles, for a total of 7122 AS miles. That is more than double what you would earn in AA miles, and AS miles are generally more valuable and more useful than AA miles anyway. Delta flights can be calculated similarly.

Earning highlight #2: earn AS miles on Hainan Airlines

Hainan Airlines has recently expanded rapidly on North American routes, launching many routes from China’s second-tier cities to North America, and its discounts have been aggressive, including some amazing business class sale fares. For example, here is a round-trip business class fare from Guangzhou to Chicago:

Hainan Airlines does not belong to any alliance (or you could say it is basically an alliance of its own), so AS miles are the only major mileage currency that can be earned on Hainan Airlines. The earning chart for Hainan flights credited to AS is as follows (note that business class also gets an extra bonus!):

Using the business-class example above, you would earn 1,165*2.5*2+6,579*2*2 = 32,141 AS miles. Valuing AS miles at 1.8c each, that is equivalent to $580 back.

The example above is a round-trip itinerary from China to the U.S. What about the other direction, from the U.S. to China? Those deals exist too. Here is a discounted business-class fare from Los Angeles to Changsha:

You can earn 13,944*2=27,888 AS miles, or $502 back, and you also get the same number of elite-qualifying miles, which means you would immediately become an Alaska Airlines MVP member and earn 50% more miles on future flights.

Earning highlight #3: Credit Cathay Pacific economy flights to AS

If you like flying Cathay, crediting those flights to AS is also a very good option. Here is the AS earning chart for Cathay Pacific flights (premium cabins get an additional bonus of +1):

If you fly Cathay economy and credit to AA, only Y, B, and H fare classes (which are extremely expensive) earn 100%; all other fare classes earn 0%! If you credit to BA, Y, B, and H earn 100%, while K, L, M, N, Q, S, and V earn only 25%. Compared with those programs, the AS earning rates are quite solid.

Earning highlight #4: Lots of partners for both domestic U.S. flights and U.S.-China flights

For U.S.-China travel, in addition to the airlines we already mentioned—AA, Delta, Hainan Airlines, and Cathay Pacific—there are also Virgin America, Japan Airlines, and Korean Air.

The AS earning chart for Japan Airlines is as follows (premium cabins get an additional bonus of +2):

The AS earning chart for Korean Air is as follows (premium cabins get an additional bonus of +10,086):

If you are not loyal to any one airline in particular, OneMoreDay thinks AS miles are a great program to play with. Within the U.S., you have AS, AA, and Virgin America; for trips back to China, you have Hainan, JAL, Cathay, Korean, and AA. These airlines not only offer great service (except AA), but they all let you earn AS miles, so you do not have to sacrifice flexibility just to stick to one alliance.

Related credit cards

For readers who do not fly very often, the best way to build up AS miles is still through the right credit cards. In addition to the co-branded card issued with BofA (the best signup bonus at the moment is 30,000 AS miles + $100), the main source of AS miles is still hotel points transfers. The two most commonly used currencies are SPG points and Marriott points. Relevant credit cards include:

  • AMEX Starwood Preferred Guest credit card (SPG card): the current signup bonus on this card is a record-high 35,000 SPG points, which can be transferred into 40,000 AS miles. It is also an AMEX card, so you can frequently take advantage of money-saving AMEX Offers.
  • Chase Marriott Premier credit card: this card currently has a record-high 107,500-point signup bonus; together with the points from meeting the minimum spending requirement, you can get 110,000 points total. That can be converted into 36,000 SPG points, and then into 41,000 AS miles. An even better option is to use Marriott points for a Travel Package: 270,000 Marriott points can be exchanged for 7 nights at a cat 1-5 hotel plus 120,000 AS miles. Since SPG points transfer to Marriott at a 1: 3 ratio, applying for this card together with the SPG card above is a good way to put together a Travel Package. For a detailed introduction to Marriott Travel Packages, see ymlulu’s complete guide to Marriott Travel Packages (1) and complete guide to Marriott Travel Packages (2). On top of that, the card has an $85 annual fee but gives you one cat 1-5 Free Night every year, making it a good long-term keeper.
  • Chase Sapphire Preferred-CSP (55,000 UR points signup bonus, 2x on travel; UR points can be transferred to Marriott at 1: 1)
  • Chase Freedom (17,500 UR points signup bonus, 5x in rotating quarterly categories, no annual fee; if you have CSP, UR points can be transferred to Marriott at 1: 1)

In the next article on AS, we will talk about AS redemptions. AS mileage earning is already quite attractive, but AS mileage redemption sweet spots are even better. Which highlights are worth paying attention to? Check out the related reading below.

Related reading

Introduction to Alaska Airlines miles (2) – Award redemption

Introduction to Alaska Airlines miles (3) – Redeeming for Hainan Airlines flights