Alaska Airlines like some of the other airlines has relaxed flight cancellation policy and the current policy allows cancelling any ticket on Alaska Airlines booked with them directly and getting funds in the Alaska Airlines wallet provided you book your flights before 03/31/2021. This combined with their recently ended discount promotions of 30% off (Which they might have again in the future) would help secure great discount specially if you are on the West Coast and are eyeing a Get-Away. 

The good part is that the flexible cancellation policy currently applies to all non-refundable fare including the cheapest "Saver" fares (which otherwise are non-refundable at all!!). Although your refund is in the Alaska Airlines Wallet or Certificate which expires 1 year from the booking date it still gives good amount of time to use the funds and peace of mind in knowing that you are not on the hook for complete loss of ticket value. 

Complete terms and conditions can be found here but are pasted below for your reference.

So, if you are planning any trip with Alaska Airlines this year then it would be a good time to book it before 03/31/2021.
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COVID-19 has disrupted many travel plans and a side effect of struggling airline industry is the airlines credit or discount codes issued in lieu of direct refund wherever the airlines could offer it. But due to on and off lock downs and travel restrictions even folks who were issued those airline credit or discount code would find difficult in using it.

So, if you have expiring airlines credits or discount codes here are few things you can do:

Contact airline's to see if they can courtesy extend your credit:
Lot of airlines realize that it still might not be possible for folks to use the credit or discount code's and given the ramping COVID-19 they might be willing to extend it or re-issue a new code with future expiration date.

Convert the credits to airlines miles (YMMV, but keep an eye for any special run by airlines):
Few airlines have been innovative and have provided members with option to convert their available credits due to cancellation to airline miles. Southwest Airlines already have active promotion for the same (So check if your credit qualifies) and Alaska Air has run the promotion couple of times in the past, so keep any eye if you have Alaska Airlines credit.

Use the credit or discount code to book future trip:
While your credit may expire it generally can be used for booking future flights before expiration. Although how far in future you can book depends on airlines, usually you should be able to book 330 days out on major U.S. airlines (Except Southwest Airlines). So as a last resort you can book something way out with hope of taking that flight and hoping if there are schedule changes you can use it to your advantage to change your ticket for free without any additional cost.

So, do not sit and let that airline credit/ discount code expire but rather act upon it with whichever options works out for you before the expiration date.

​Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.

Alaska Airlines is running their amazing offer of converting your wallet funds to miles at 1 cent/mile again and it last's till November 13th, 11:59 PM (PST). They ran this offer earlier in Oct, 2020 and similar to last time this offer is only valid for folks who have funds in their wallet prior to the announcement of the offer. You can access the offer here and will see the offer if there are any wallet funds in your Alaska Airlines account.

​So, if you have funds in your wallet for any of your earlier cancelled flights this might be a great offer as it not only gives longer time to use your money/miles but also gives you are great value for redeeming the miles on some of the nice business class partner redemption's. Alaska Airlines miles do not expire for at-least 24 months from the account activity and this conversion is currently counted as account activity!!

Since they are running this offer the 2nd time it is also highly likely that they might run it again in the future. So, if you do not mind you can load up your wallet with Alaska gift cards or cancelled ticket amount in the hope of future offer to convert your wallet balance to Alaska Airlines miles at 1 cent/mile. 

Note: Alaska Airlines current peace of mind policy for changes/cancellation allows free wallet deposit for tickets booked till 12/31/2020!!

Here are the terms of the original offer:
Terms and ConditionsOffer valid through October 12, 2020 11:59 pm (PT): Qualifying members who receive this offer directly from Alaska Airlines via email can exchange Alaska wallet funds in increments of 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100% of their current wallet balance for Mileage Plan bonus miles at an exchange rate of 100 miles per $1.

Bonus miles are redeemable for award travel, but do not count toward elite status qualification. 

All wallet exchanges for miles are final, and wallet credit once redeemed is not refundable. If wallet balance at the time of debit is below what is needed to cover the exchange, the exchange will be canceled. Offer cannot be combined with any other offer. All Mileage Plan terms and conditions apply.

Mileage Plan miles do not expire, but if a Mileage Plan account is inactive for 2 years, Alaska Airlines may close the account; miles in a closed account can be reinstated for a fee for up to 1 year after closure.

Exchanging wallet credit for Mileage Plan miles pursuant to this offer does qualify as account activity, so your Mileage Plan account will remain active for at least 2 years after the effective date of the exchange.
This offer is not intended to apply to new purchases of gift certificates occurring during the offer period. If you acquire a gift certificate during the offer period, or receive a gift certificate acquired during the offer period, and exchange that gift certificate for Miles in violation of this condition of the offer, we will reverse the transaction, remove the Miles from your account, and re-issue the amount exchanged as wallet credit. 
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As with most airlines and hotels facing cash crunch one of the easy way to raise cash is by selling miles/points at a discounted price. On that note Alaska Airlines is currently offering certain member's ability to purchase miles with additional "up to 60% bonus" miles based on the amount of points purchased.

• Buy 5,000 to 39,000 miles get 40% bonus
• Buy 40,000 to 100,000 miles get 60% bonus

Alaska Airlines partners with many airlines including best in class such as Emirates, Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific. So if you have any planned trip for which you can find award space then it may be a good deal to top up or buy Alaska Airlines miles for this trip. To see what is your targeted bonus you need to use your Mileage Plan details and check here. 

So, if you purchase 40,000 miles you will receive bonus miles of 24,000; so for a total cost of $1,100 you will receive 64,000 miles. For 62,500 miles you can travel one way to/from South Asia to Contiguous U.S. /Alaska in Cathay Pacific Business class! You can look up the award chart for different airlines here by selecting your region of travel. 

Below are the published terms for the bonus miles promo:

• Transactions must be completed between 6:00 AM PST June 22, 2020 and 11:59 PM PST June 28, 2020 to be eligible for bonus miles.
• Miles are purchased from Points.com Inc. for a cost of $27.50 per 1,000 miles, plus GST/HST for Canadian residents.
• Miles are non-refundable and do not count toward MVP and MVP/Gold status.
• You may purchase and gift Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles in increments of 1,000 miles up to 60,000 miles, and in increments of 5,000 miles up to a maximum of 100,000 miles per transaction.
• Your Mileage Plan account may be credited up to a maximum total of 150,000 miles acquired through Points.com in a calendar year, whether purchased by you or gifted to you. MVP, MVP Gold and MVP Gold 75K Mileage Plan member accounts have no annual limit on the number of miles which may be purchased or gifted through Points.com.
• Offer is subject to change and all terms and conditions of the Mileage Plan Program apply.

Purchase miles only if you have trip planned in near/distant future as speculative buying may not be the best bet at this time.

​Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.

Due to spread of Coronavirus named COVID-19 majority of airlines in the U.S.A. are now offering free cancellation (in some cases free change of dates). There is a catch though for all of them where the refund will be provided as a credit for the future ticket (again the length of validity of that credit varies). The policy are different for different airlines in regards to when the tickets were booked and the flight date till which the policy would be applicable.

The good news is that if you have any travel plans within the eligible dates then the time is to book NOW!! Since you are eligible to cancel without any reason you can be assured that if your plans change you will not lose your flight money completely (although it would be tied to particular airline only). The policy also applies to "basic economy" fares which are the most restrictive otherwise.

That being said the best deal out there is with JetBlue Airways as there policy applies equally to both revenue fares purchased as well as Award Tickets. So below are the links for major U.S. Airlines regarding their change/cancellation policy.

JetBlue Airways: Policy applies to both revenue fare as well as Award Tickets. The refund will be provided in "JetBlue travel bank" credit for revenue ticket and taxes+fees on award tickets. The credit expires 1 year from initial issue date.

Alaska Airlines: Policy applies to revenue fare only. The refund will be provided in "Alaska Wallet" which is valid for travel till 28th Feb 2021.

American Airlines: Policy applies to revenue fare only and only "changes" are allowed. Also there are few "gotcha" in terms of the valid dates of booking and travel which you need to be aware of.

Delta Airlines: Policy applies to revenue fare only and only "changes" are allowed. Both domestic and international tickets can be changes without paying change fees when booked within applicable dates.

United Airlines: Policy applies to revenue fare only and both changes and cancellations are allowed. For cancelled tickets the original ticket value will be retained for future travel up to 12 months from the original ticket issue date. Also this applies only to tickets purchase within applicable dates.

So, if you have any travel plans within the applicable booking cancellations dates now is the best time to book it.

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Alaska Airlines credit card is issued by Bank of America in U.S.A. Although the card has annual fees of $75, it does comes with a decent sign up bonus for 25k to 40k miles and a great companion fare ticket which you receive after the minimum spend requirement and then annually after paying the annual fees. The companion fare allows the purchase of companion ticket for $99+ taxes and fees (Or for $0+ taxes and fees for 1st year of companion certificate if you had hop on the promotion last year).

Alaska Airlines maintains an FAQ for the companion fare, but the real incredible feature is not mentioned there. Below is the quick summary about the companion fare:

• The companion fare can be used to book tickets for any 2 person as long as the ticket is purchased and paid with the credit card of the person who was issued the companion pass (Note: Starting Oct 1st, 2019, Alaska Airlines will require the use of Alaska Airlines credit card for purchase of the ticket).
• All economy class tickets can be booked with companion fare, in fact you can book up-gradable tickets which can be later upgraded to premium class using cash, miles or upgrade instruments.
• Both passengers on companion pass tickets earn full redeemable/elite mileage as well as any bonus associated with the actual fare purchased. 
• The ticket only needs to be purchased by the expiration date on the companion certificate, but the travel could be up to 12 months in the future. (Note: Any itinerary cancellation or changes after the expiration of certificate might void the certificate for future use).
• You can travel to any of the 115+ destinations of Alaska Airlines using the companion fare including Canada, Mexico and Costa Rica.
• The companion fare can be used to book one way, round trip, multi-city itinerary where the companion ticket costs only $99+taxes.

There are other details/restrictions of the companion fare and the official Alaska Airlines blog details the booking process, but the biggest highlight is the multi-city itinerary. Since you can enter up to 4 city pairs online you can technically have two stopovers of as many days you wish before you hit your final destination. Take a look at below example:

As you can see from above, you can fly from Honolulu to San Jose and to New York and back all in for a great price and stop at multiple locations for a good amount of time. That's a lot of flying. On top of it you can have open-jaw ticket flying in and out of different airport and thus you can maximize your companion fare further.

Given that each passenger would also earn 1 mile for each mile flown, you would earn good amount of miles. Also Alaska Airlines partners with various international airlines such as Cathay Pacific, Emirates etc, so in addition to Alaska Airlines you can redeem your miles on these partner airlines as well. So, if you are on the sidelines but do plan to travel with your companion and stay close to Alaska Airlines flight destinations, you would definitely want to take a look at Alaska Airlines credit card!

​Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.

It's shopping season again and some of the major airline affiliated shopping portals are offering tiered bonus miles for spending money at various advertised merchants. Below are the current mileage bonus promotions from various airlines shopping portals.

Delta Airlines:
Earn up to 1,000 bonus Delta Skymiles for shopping from 11/05/2018 to 11/18/2018.

• Earn 500 bonus miles when you spend $150.
• Earn 1,000 bonus miles when you spend $300.

American Airlines:
Earn up to 4,000 American Airlines miles for shopping till 11/18/2018.

• Earn 500 bonus miles when you spend $150.
• Earn 2,000 bonus miles when you spend $600.
• Earn 4,000 bonus miles when you spend $1,200.

United Airlines:
Earn up to 5,000 United miles for shopping till 11/18/2018.

• Earn 500 bonus miles when you spend $150.
• Earn 2,500 bonus miles when you spend $750.
• Earn 5,000 bonus miles when you spend $1500.​

Southwest Airlines:
Earn up to 3,000 Southwest Airlines miles for shopping till 11/18/2018.

• ​Earn 500 bonus miles when you spend $150.
• Earn 1,000 bonus miles when you spend $500.
• Earn 3,000 bonus miles when you spend $1,000.

Alaska Airlines:
Earn up to 1,500 Alaska Airlines miles for shopping till 11/18/2018.

• Earn 300 bonus miles when you spend $150.
• Earn 750 bonus miles when you spend $300.
• ​Earn 1,500 bonus miles when you spend $500.

Each one of you would values miles from specific airlines differently. So, based on your preference as well as amount you are looking to spend you might want to lean towards specific airlines shopping portal. Enjoy the bonus miles on items which might be discounted earlier then the Thanksgiving!

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Groupon recently announced loyalty program partnership where you can earn Airlines miles or Hotel points with participating airlines and hotels by using a airline/hotel specific promo code. The current earning for Airlines and Hotels are as below:
Airlines

• New customer bonus for local purchase of $30 or more = 1,000 miles
• Local = 5 miles/dollar spent
• Getaways = 4 miles/dollar spent
• Goods = 3 miles /dollar spent

Hotels

• New customer bonus for local purchase of $30 or more = 2,000 points
• Local = 10 points/dollar spent
• Getaways = 8 points/dollar spent
• Goods = 6 points /dollar spent

Below are the current participating partners:

• Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan
• American Airlines AAdvantage
• United MileagePlus
• JetBlue True Blue
• Choice Privileges
• IHG Rewards Club
• LaQuinta Returns

When you click the link here you need to login and select the partner program in which you need to earn miles/points as and enter your membership number on the screen as shown below:

After confirming your membership number you will be given the airline/hotel specific promo code. For e.g. below is what you would see for Alaska Airlines.

There is an Alaska Airlines offer to earn 1k to 3k Alaska Mileage Plan miles which is going to expire in less than 2 weeks. Alaska Airlines miles are valuable as you can redeem that at array of airline partners and they have pretty good award redemption chart for most of their partners. With the offer "Take the Dash for Miles Challenge" you can earn 1k miles for transaction with each partner. The details of the terms can be found here and you need to register for the offer on the same page.
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While doing transaction with all 3 partners should be easy you could still do offer with only one of the partner and pocket 1k miles. Below are the three partners where you can earn 1k miles:
Mileage Plan Dining: If you are new member you also earn bonus miles for your first dine but it requires a minimum purchase amount. Alternatively you can spend as low as $1 on any of the participating dining partner and earn 1k miles under Dash Challenge. 

The Opinion Terminal: You earn 400 miles as well after you register and do the first survey. This could be YMMV as you need to complete the survey successfully to earn 1k bonus mile under Dash Challenge. 

Mileage Plan Shopping: You can easily earn 1k miles in Dash challenge by making a purchase of ~$1 at JCPenney or Home Depot. For Home Depot you can do in-store pick up and just pocket 1k Alaska Mileage Plan miles.

So, go ahead and get some quick miles before this offer expires.

​Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.

Most of the USA Carriers sells fare which are non-refundable. If you cancel your reservation within 24 hours of booking you can get full refund to your original payment method without any fees. There are however two carriers which are more flexible on change / refund policy and these are Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines.

For Southwest if you cancel the flight up-to 10 minutes before departure you get the refund in the form of Southwest credit to be used by the same passenger within one year of the date of purchase of the ticket. For Alaska if you have booked the flight which is more than 60 days away from the flight date then you get the refund as a credit in your "My Wallet". The good part is this credit could be use for any passenger and it does not expire. 

So what happens if the price falls for the flight booked by on Alaska Airlines website and the flights are within 60 days of purchase date?

The good news is that Alaska Airlines provides Price Guarantee where if the price of the flights falls it would either provide a refund or credit in My Wallet based on refundable or a non-refundable fare. Apart from Southwest Airlines generous change policy Alaska Airlines is the only one which does not charge any fees and provides the credit if the price of the flight booked by you falls below the original ticketed price.

There are requirements such as you should not be changing the flight date, times, or cabin while using the price guarantee so as to say it has to be for the same flight you had originally booked. You can find the full terms here but more importantly the entire process can be done online and the credit gets deposited in My Wallet and expires in 1 year from the original date of reservation but you use it for any passengers. Also you can claim this credit for Virgin America flights booked on Alaska Airlines website . 

So the next time you see the fare of your booked flights with Alaska Airlines fall below your purchase price and if the reservation is within 60 days of travel, go ahead and claim the credit for future use here.

Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.