Crunching the Numbers on Buying Alaska Miles with Targeted Bonus

I almost never buy airline miles. Occasionally, if I just need a small amount to top off my account to book an award, I will buy a nominal amount. But, I don’t regularly buy large amounts, even when they are “on sale”.

Why not? There is risk involved. The value of miles can go down, and there is not always award availability for where and when you want to travel.

However, I do like crunching numbers. And recently, I received an email from Alaska Airlines targeting me for a special bonus on buying Alaska miles: 40% bonus on 3000+ miles, 50% bonus on 25,000+ miles and 60% bonus on 45,000-150,000 miles. Since I’m not an elite member, the maximum number of miles I can purchase in a year (not including bonus miles) is 150,000 miles. The cost of miles (without the bonus miles) is 2.75 cents per miles plus 7.5% tax.

Alaska miles can be used to book award flights on Alaska Airlines as well as on these partner airlines:

Aer Lingus
Air Tahiti Nui
American Airlines
British Airways
Cathay Pacific
Condor
EL AL
Fiji Airways
Finnair
Hainan Airlines
Iberia
Icelandair
Japan Airlines
Korean Air
LATAM
Malaysia Airlines
Qantas
Qatar Airways
Royal Air Maroc
Royal Jordanian
Singapore Airlines
SriLankan Airlines
Starlux Airlines

I recently used my earned Alaska miles on flights from Tokyo to Dallas. Let’s see how much those flights would have cost me if I purchased miles under this promotion.

Dallas to Tokyo Flight Cost Comparison Buying Alaska Miles

Economy: Round-trip Economy tickets on Japan Airlines using Alaska miles cost 75,000 miles + $82 in round-trip taxes.

Buying the miles: With this 60% bonus promotion, I’d have to buy 47,000 miles (which gives me 28,200 bonus) for a total of $1389.44 including taxes. I’d still have to pay $82 in award taxes to book the award ticket with those miles, so the total is $1471.44 for a round-trip Economy flight.. The cash price for this ticket on JAL’s website runs $2000+. So buying miles would save a few hundred dollars for this nonstop flight. (However, I can get connecting flights for cheaper).

Premium Economy: Round-trip Premium Economy class tickets on Japan Airlines with Alaska miles cost 100,000 miles + $82.

Buying the miles: With the 60% bonus promotion, I’d have to buy 65,000 miles (which gives me 39,000 bonus miles) for a total of $1921.56 including tax. Plus, I’d still have to pay the flight taxes of $82 for my award flight. So, the grand total would be $2003.56 for a round-trip Premium Economy flight on JAL buying Alaska miles during this promotion. The cash price for this ticket on JAL’s website runs $3000+, depending on the date. So, buying the miles for a Premium Economy flight would save $1000+, although I’d still have to pay $2000 for a ticket.

Business Class: Round-trip Business class tickets on Japan Airlines with Alaska miles cost 150,000 miles + $82.

Buying the miles: With the 60% bonus promotion, I’d have to buy 95,000 miles (which gives 57,000 bonus miles) for a total of $2808.44 with taxes. Once I add the award taxes of $82, the total is $2890.44. The cash price for this ticket on JAL’s website runs $10,000+. So, buying the miles saves a lot of money, but you still have to shell out a few thousand dollars.

What do these numbers mean?

If I had zero Alaska Airlines miles and I wanted to buy miles with this targeted 60% bonus promotion, I would save money in all three classes by buying Alaska miles instead of paying the cash price for tickets. The savings gap is biggest in Business Class.

However, my goal is to always use miles from credit card bonuses instead of paying cash whenever possible. When I was booking my family’s flights to Japan for next year, I had multiple mileage currencies I could use. I ended up using Avios and Alaska miles.

While buying miles to book award seats may save money, the award seats still have to be available to book. It’s rare to find JAL Business Class award availability on Alaska Airlines. Plus, if my entire family of 5 was flying, I would not shell out $2890 X 5, even if it was for Business Class.

Bottom Line: I’m not buying any Alaska Airlines miles under this promotion. Maybe at some point in the future, if I run out of miles, I’ll crunch some numbers again and look at award availability to see if buying miles makes sense.