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Alaska Airlines MileagePlan is running a 40% bonus sale, available to the first 2,500 MileagePlan members who take action. You can buy 10,000 Alaska miles at a time that will come with a 4,000 miles bonus. If 2,500 members don’t purchase sale miles by 11:59pm on May 3, the promotion will end then.

Including taxes, you’ll pay $295.63 for 14,000 miles, or 2.11 cents per mile. We’ve seen Alaska miles on sale with as much as a 50% bonus, allowing you to buy them for 1.97 cents each. 2.11 cents a mile is what we typically see Alaska miles on sale for periodically–the price per mile is not what makes this specific sale an interesting opportunity. What makes this promotion stand out is that you can buy as little 10,000 and still earn the bonus miles, which is not usually the case. For example, this sale that ended last December allowed up to a 40% bonus but only if you bought a minimum of 40,000 miles.

If you need to top off your MileagePlan account for a specific high value award, this sale could be exactly what you need since a purchase of only 10,000 miles is necessary to trigger the 4k bonus.

Maximum Purchase

The maximum amount of transactions per customer is five, so you can actually buy as many as 70,000 miles (50,000 miles + 20,000 mile bonus) for a total of $1,478.15. If the cost of the cash ticket you want is more than what it would cost to pay for the miles necessary to book the same ticket as an award, then do it. Crunch your own numbers if you’re looking to fly Alaska or one of their many partners.

I don’t think Alaska miles are worth 2.11 cents each, but they are worth close to that, and if you have a specific redemption in mind, it is not hard to get more than 2.11 cents of value per mile.

Airlines on Which You Can Redeem Alaska Miles

Here are the Alaska partners on which you can redeem. (Note: AeroMexico awards have been unavailable since October 2015.)

Note that Delta will cease to be a partner as of May 1.
Note that Delta will cease to be a partner as of May 1.

Read about how to get the most out of Alaska miles in 7 Awesome Alaska Awards w/Free Stopovers & How to Book Them.

Alaska Airlines Award Routing Rules

Alaska Airlines is extremely generous allowing a stopover on one way awards, anywhere you’d like en route.

Here are the basics for redemptions of Alaska miles.

Logistics of Buying Alaska Miles

Remember that Alaska Airlines miles sales are handled through points.com, so they are not considered airfare or travel purchases for the purposes of earning a category bonus on your credit card. Buy these points with whatever card you’re meeting a minimum spending requirement on, or whichever card that earns the type of point or mile you value the most.

For me, that would be my Starwood Preferred Guest Card from American Express. I value SPG points at 2.5 cents each due to their incredible versatility.

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Bottom Line

Alaska miles are on sale for 2.11 cents each. You can buy them in chunks of 14,000 at a time. While that’s probably too high of a price to buy speculatively, it is a good price if you have an immediate high value use for the miles. It is also a good opportunity for those needing just a few more miles to top off their account as you can buy them in small increments with the bonus, which is not typically the case.

Note the following from the promotion’s terms & conditions: “If a member opens a new Mileage Plan account, they will have to wait 10 business days before they are allowed to purchase, gift, and transfer or swap miles online into their new Mileage Plan account.”

Sale Link: Alaska Miles with 40% Bonus

Hat tip The Points Guy