Guide to GUIDE TO TRAVEL HACKING WITH ALASKA MILES - INTENTIONAL TRAVELERS

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1 Guide to 1

2 Who is this Guide for? I created this guide for the average person who simply wants to do more traveling without breaking the bank. It will be especially helpful for people who have an international trip in mind that is still months in the future. Although it s certainly not a requirement, people who live in the Pacific Northwest- especially Seattle or Portland- or Alaska will probably get the most out of an Alaska Airlines mileage plan. But even if Alaska Airlines doesn t fly through your home airport, you can still earn miles on Alaska and use your mileage awards on partner airlines. Who is this Guide NOT for? People who don t want to travel People who have too much money for all the travel they want to accomplish People who need to travel tomorrow People who have trouble paying off credit cards every month Alaska Airlines Loyalty Program Basics The Alaska Airlines mileage program is known as one of the most valuable to be found because of its flexibility. You re not limited by the destinations that Alaska flies. Instead, you can use the miles you earn from Alaska and apply them to book flights with a variety of partner airlines. The key part of the travel hacking strategy with Alaska Air is the Signature VISA credit card. Each time you sign up for the card, you earn a minimum of 25,000 miles. That s equivalent to a domestic round-trip ticket. You also get an annual companion pass (see more about that below), which is almost always more than worth the $75 annual fee. 2

3 When you purchase flights through AlaskaAir.com on your Signature VISA, you ll earn 3 miles per dollar spent in addition to the miles earned from actually flying. For all other spending you do on the card, you ll earn 1 mile per dollar spent (or more through Alaska s online shopping site). As of this writing, you can earn Alaska Airline miles through these partners as well as use your accrued Alaska miles to book flights on: Note that to book a flight on a partner airline, you can not transfer miles to the partner airline s award program. Instead, you book the flight directly through AlaskaAir.com and check the box for Use Miles (or call for a fee). Each individual must have their own Alaska Air account to accrue miles in. 3

4 Annual Companion Fare The annual companion fare is a highlight of Alaska s credit card program. The companion fare is essentially a discount code for two people traveling on the same itinerary- the first person will pay the full fare price while the companion s fare is only $99 plus fees ($118 total). For example, when we fly Portland to Hawaii to visit family for the holidays, the fares can get up to $1000 per person round trip. The normal cost of the trip for two of us would, therefore, be around $2000. When we use the companion fare, however, we pay $1000 for one of us and only $118 for the other, for a savings of $885 The companion fare can be used for any round trip or one-way itinerary on an Alaska Air flight (not a partner airline) in which you and your companion will be flying together the whole way. But, actually, it s more flexible than that (see the Tips and Tricks below). When you get a new Signature VISA, a code for the companion fare will show up in your online Alaska mileage account under Valid Discount Codes. It cannot be used in combination with miles or other discount codes. Tips and Tricks Open jaw flights: The companion fare allows a stop-over but you don t actually have to fly out of the same airport you arrive in. For example, we used a companion fare to string together two one-way trips from Chicago to Portland and then, months later, from Hawaii back to Portland. Selling to friends: If you re not going to fly on Alaska Air that often, or if you choose to get multiple VISA Signature cards and end up with too many companion tickets, you can book your companion fare for another pair of people. Most people would be more than happy to help cover the cost of your annual fee because they re still getting a great deal on their flights. So you sign in to your Alaska account online, select your companion discount code, book the tickets in your friends names, pay for it with your Signature VISA (for 3x miles per dollar), and have your friends write you a check for one full fare plus $175 (or whatever you decide is fair). 4

5 Earning Miles Alaska Airlines VISA Signature Card Before you sign up for the credit card, you should always do a google search to find the current, best bonus offer. Usually the sign up bonus will be 25,000 miles upon approval. Occasionally, however, there will be a promotion like an additional 25,000 miles or a $100 credit after meeting a minimum spend (for example: $3,000 within 90 days). Note that if you sign up for the Signature card and don t have an adequate credit score (Good or Excellent), you may receive a less desirable card with a very small bonus. When you sign up for a credit card, include your Alaska account number when possible, otherwise you ll have to combine your accounts later on. Here is the online Alaska Airlines VISA Signature Card application link Starwood Preferred Guest American Express The Starwood Preferred Guest card is perhaps the best companion credit card to the Alaska Air VISA. The unique thing about spending on the SPG card is that you earn points that can be transferred 1:1 to a wide variety of airlines, hotel, and car rental partners, including Alaska Air. The usual sign-up bonus for this card is 10,000 points after the first purchase and an additional 15,000 points after spending $5,000 in the first six months. You can also earn 5,000 points for adding another card member to your account and for referring someone who gets approved for their own SPG card. Members of the same household can transfer points to each other s accounts without a fee, which can really come in handy. Once you ve earned points with SPG, allow some extra time to process your transfer into your Alaska mileage (or other award program) account. Also, when you transfer points out of SPG in chunks of 20,000 you get a bonus 5,000 points, so you should always try to do this The SPG card has an annual fee of $65 but it is waived the first year. Unlike the Alaska card, you can only receive the bonus points once, so there s no point in reapplying. But if you re married, I recommend getting the card for one person the first year, canceling it before the fee becomes due, and then getting the card for the second person the following year. 5

6 SPG also has a business card available, so an individual can have both the personal and the business card. SPG s business card approval process can be a bit more strict than Alaska s though. Credit Card Tips and Tricks: Personal and business cards: There is also a business card available through Alaska with the same 25,000 miles bonus at sign up. You don t necessarily have to be an official or registered business owner to be approved for the business card. I m told that selling a few things on e-bay would count. In that case, you can enter your social security number in the place of the business registration number and mark sole proprietorship for type of business. Each adult in your household can thus have both a personal and a business card. Refer your spouse/friend or add card member: Check the card application and promotion page in case they offer additional miles to add a card for a family member. If another adult in your household gets a card on your account, you will be responsible for paying off their expenses but you will also get miles for it. Also, use Alaska s referral page to get an extra 5,000 miles when someone you know signs up for a card using your link. Reapply every 3 months (AK): The other added bonus with the Alaska cards is that there is no limit to how many you can apply for. Travel hackers will apply for the Signature card as often as every three months to receive a stream of 25,000 bonus miles. Just cancel each card before its first year is up to avoid being charged the $75 annual fee for the second year. Note that every time you get a new card, the $75 annual fee will post to your credit card statement and another companion fare discount code will post to your Alaska account. Tips for canceling cards: When you call the bank to cancel your card, they will typically ask you for a reason you want to cancel so they can attempt to keep your business. Not wanting to pay the annual fee again is a valid reason, and they may offer to downgrade you to a no-fee card (which could be worthwhile for your credit score if you can keep it and never use it). When I called to cancel my personal card, I was also in the process of applying for a business card so the retention specialist didn t give me any trouble. Another pro tip is that you should have a zero balance on all of your credit card accounts whenever you do go to cancel a card. This is because your credit score is tuned to changes in the percent of credit you re using. If all your lines of credit add up to $10,000 and you have a $5,000 balance you have yet to pay off, canceling a card with a 6

7 $2,000 line of credit looks like you went from 5,000/10,000 (50% of credit used) up to 5,000/8,000 (62.5%). But if you have a $0 balance, you change from 0% to 0% which is nothing. Flying and Purchasing on AlaskaAir.com Your daily spending on the Alaska or SPG cards will generally earn 1 mile per dollar spent. But if you re purchasing flights or travel packages with your Alaska card on Alaska s website, you earn 3 miles per dollar. There is also a shopping site through Alaska s website where you can earn additional miles per dollar spent with various vendors. If you re already doing online shopping, it would be worth checking to see if you can make those purchases through the site and earn more miles. Earning miles by flying on Alaska is ironically one of the least effective ways to rack up your mileage, unless you re doing it frequently for business travel or something. Even so, it can be worth paying a little extra for a flight on Alaska to get both the miles from your travel and the 3x mile spend using the Signature VISA card on Alaska s website. Miles earned from a flight on Alaska (or their partner airlines) are accrued according to the actual distance in miles of the flight. Just be sure to include your Alaska account number when you book, or save your ticket to request miles after the fact. 7

8 Redeeming Miles Most award flights can be booked on the Alaska Airlines website, through the normal booking tool, by checking off use miles. Apparently Cathay Pacific and LAN flights must be booked by phone, which incurs a $15 call center fee. There s also a $12.50 one-way, non-refundable fee for booking a partner award whether online or by phone. You can change or cancel your trip for a full refund (minus the fees just mentioned) if it s 60 days in advance. Within 60 days of your flight, there is a $125 change fee. Award Amounts You can view charts on Alaska s website to find out an estimate of how many miles are required for different trips. Links to each region can be found on the left of the page. Keep in mind, for future reference, that award fares may change based on availability. For example, a 30,000 mile ticket for an economy seat may only be available Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Tuesday and Thursday, the only available seats may be first class at 55,000. Tips and Tricks Book 9 to 11 months in advance. This is supposed to be when the most award seats are available. Wait too late, and they may be all booked up. Open jaw: You can book multi-city trips or two one-way trips with the awards, often for the same cost as a roundtrip. For example, fly from Portland to Paris. Then drive or take the train around Europe. Fly back from Amsterdam to Portland. Stop-overs: A stop-over is an extra stay in the middle of your flight (like a several day lay over ). Alaska allows you to make one stop-over per direction. If you play around with the online booking tool s multi-city option, you can add stops to your trip for no extra cost. Extra legs: Because award tickets have a flat cost (i.e. Anywhere in North America to anywhere in Europe costs the same amount of miles), you can add an extra leg to your journey. Also, it doesn t matter how much time elapses between one leg of the trip and the next. For example, say you re flying round-trip from Salt Lake City to Paris and back. But you also have an upcoming trip to Seattle the following month. You could use your miles to book SLC to Paris and then Paris to SLC to Seattle. Even though you re staying at home for a full month until your Seattle trip, it s still considered the same ticket. 8

9 Sample Plan: 0 to 60 Flight to Europe According to my research, the ideal time to book an award flight using your miles is 9 to 11 months in advance. Traditionally, airlines will release availability for a set number of award seats 11 months out. You may be able to find the tickets you want closer to your date of departure but it s not guaranteed, as award seats can get booked up (regardless of whether non-award seats are still available on the flight). So work backward from the 9 to 11 month ideal booking period, and allow a few weeks of processing time if you need to transfer points from an SPG account into your Alaska mileage account months in advance: Research award flights on AlaskaAir.com to find out how many miles are needed and if your flight is possible (ex 65,000 per person round trip to Europe) months: Apply for Alaska VISA personal and business (50,000 total per person) and SPG card (25,000 per person) 3. Start to meet minimum spends for SPG card (and Alaska cards if necessary) months: When points have posted to SPG account, transfer to Alaska in chunks of 20, months: When points have posted, book award ticket 6. 1 month: cancel cards before annual fee is due 7. Fly to Europe 9

10 Additional Travel Hacking Resources There are many travel hacking experts out there who have published great articles about various tips and tricks. They say it better than I could, so I ll just list some links to the best info I ve found so far. Unconventional Guides: Frequent Flyer Master Far and away the most comprehensive guide I ve seen, this is what I used to really get started. The author, Chris Guillebeau, has traveled to every country in the world and generously shares information on the various aspects of travel hacking. If you think you re ready to really get into it - and go beyond Alaska Airlines - then this is my top recommendation. Hunting for the same information online, while possible, would be very time consuming compared to getting it all laid out for you in one place. (Full disclosure: If you make a purchase by following my link, I will get a commission. I only recommend it because I ve used it myself and know how useful it is.) Other useful links: How Credit Card Churning Affects your Credit Score by NerdWallet Churnable Cards by The Man of A Thousand Places CreditSesame: Free Credit Score Site Cards for Travel (recommended cards with bonus miles) Credit 101: Meeting the Minimum Spend by Cards For Travel AwardWallet (free to keep track of your award points in one place) The Frequent Flyer Challenge by Art of Non-Conformity Referaround (search for ways to get bonus miles when referring a friend to sign up for a card) Table Comparison of Airline Stop-over and Open Jaw Rules by Well Traveled Mile How and When to Find the Cheapest Airfare by View From The Wing Is the SPG Card Worth Keeping? by Running With Miles 10