MAXIMIZING ALASKA AIRLINES COMPANION AND UPGRADE CERTIFICATES

Alaska Airlines has one of the hidden gems of value specially for folks staying on the west coast in one of the Alaska hubs to Hawaiian Islands. One value is booking a direct award flight (provided it is available at lowest mileage level) using British Airways Avios. The other better value is flying in "first class" on revenue ticket for Economy class ticket cost or less. This can be best maximized if you have companion travelling with you. Let me explain you this!

You need two different kind of certificates to fly first at the cost of Economy. These are:

• One Companion certificate provided as part of possessing Alaska Airlines Credit Card issued by BofA. This will provide companion ticket
• Four MVP Gold Guest Upgrade certificates, (Any one who has MVP Gold or MVP Gold 75k elite status gets 4 complimentary certificates and usually they expire Dec 31st of next year from when it is awarded). Even if you do not have Alaska Airlines MVP Gold status but have highest level elite status with either United, Delta or American Airlines you can easily status match to Alaska Airlines MVP Gold Status and obtain these upgrade certificates.

So, let me walk you through this with example below:

Flying from SJC (San Jose, CA) to OGG (Maui, Hawaii) in September around Labor day weekend of 2015:
You need to "enable" the "Advance Search" option on Alaska Airlines website as highlighted in red in below screen shot.

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Select "Advance Search" to show Upgrade and Discount code boxes

On the next page you will see "drop down box" for Upgrade Certificate type and a Discount code field box as shown on screen shot below. Select "MVP Gold Guest Upgrade" from the drop down for now and keep the "Discount code" field empty for now just to see the prices.

Discount code field is for companion certificate code or any other discount code

As you can see in below picture there is availability with "Upgradable Space" shown. The one where the "U" symbol besides the flight detail is highlighted shows the Upgrade availability is there for instant upgrade. You should look out for "only this kind of upgrade" as it is guaranteed upgrade space.

Both the Nonstop flight is showing the Upgrade space available. Luckily the price for Upgrade is same as the Lowest Coach price which is good news.

Let's do the above search again by entering the discount code you would have in your account provided by BofA for your Alaska Airlines companion certificate. The companion ticket costs $99 + taxes & fees only. Below is the new cost with companion discount code being applied.

Companion fare costs is $146 in total which includes $99 companion fare in it.

As you can see from above two snap shots. The initial cost of $485 for the 2nd passenger or the companion passenger has been reduced to mere $146 only. So, essentially you bought the round trip ticket for 2 persons on Alaska Airlines "first class" for just ~$631 in total. As you can see from below snap shot the best bargain you can get using combination of certificates.

The total cost for two passenger is just ~$631

So, remember next time you travel on Alaska Airlines you might be actually able to travel in first class for less than Economy/Coach class fare.