Alaska Airlines Visa Question

[1disneynutt]

I am thinking about getting the Alaska Airlines Visa card. Right now they have a promotion where you get 20,000 free miles and a $99 companion ticket upon approval. Has anyone taken advantage of this promotion and how did it work? Can you cancel at any time (still paying the $75 yearly fee)? Are there any blockout dates?

 

[Dobie]

I love this card! It is our second card..the Dobies use it at places that don't take American Express...which means that Dobie Daughter's college tuition goes on this card and we have racked up a LOT of miles.

We use a companion ticket every summer. Last summer we flew to Boston, for the cost of one ticket plus 99.00.

There are no blockout dates...I have used miles to fly Dobie Daughter home from college...

Next summer Dobie husband and I are using the companion ticket to fly to Disney!

My mom uses this card to buy EVERYTHING and she gets enough miles plus a companion ticket and goes to Hawaii and Mexico every year.

 

[rosiep]

I second the motion!

Love the Alaska Air Visa...both my daughter and I have one and we use the companion fare certificates every year. I have a frequent flyer account and it can be managed online at Alaska...the companian fare shows up there as well so there's no paper to misplace....

I say go for it!

 

[specialks]

We have this card and have always loved it. However, I seem to be having more trouble lately getting the 25,000 point tickets and the tickets are costing more points to travel on certain days. Also, they charge foreign transaction fees, so if you travel abroad a lot, you might take note. We actually have been researching switching to the Captial One Venture card instead of this one. The $99 companion certificate is great, but it was greater when we first enrolled and it was a $50 companion certificate. The perks used to be a lot better and over time, Alaska has really started to limit this card. It is a disappointment to us because we have always loved it. Our pasts experiences have been awesome with this card, but I worry that as they keep cutting back, they are going to turn into a NWA/Delta where you can't find a ticket for 25,000 unless you book a year in advance or something.

 

[Hawleys]

I'm going to chime in here too and say that I love my Alaska Airlines Visa Card. We're flying to Europe this summer with our miles.

We use our companion fare every year to travel for Christmas and it saves us quite a bit of money. Keep in mind that with the $75 fee and the companion fare, you are still paying $175 plus tax for the extra ticket. $175 is a great deal for us when we are traveling across the country but if you're just taking a short hop, it may not be worth it.

 

[Happy 2 B Me]

Log onto alaska airlines .com. You should see an ad to get 25k miles with first use of card. I think my cost per year is 65 dollars. ( had mine awhile). I had enough miles for 3 free tickets this year. Now I do not suggest my use of the alaska air miles card, but if you can pay off the card each month-- never be late and never carry a balance then this cc is fine. Not part of your question but I think there is a card with no annual fee that you can get miles on to -for any airline. Sorry cann't remember what one and I have no idea how that one works.

You might think that alaska would not be happy to have me pay off balace each month but---They love that. Alaska gets maybe 1.75% of purchase amount every time I charge anything. Trust me I charge everything-LOL so even though I do not pay interest each month I have lots of cc transactions so that keeps them happy.

Hope this helps -- and remember by going to alaska's web page and signing up for car you get those 25k -- enough for free ticket


Patty

 

[FourM's]

We love our card as well. We have used our miles for trips to Orlando, Hawaii, and Disneyland. I agree with the PP about not carrying a balance on it, the interest rate isn't wonderful. We used our companion fare coupon for a Christmas season ticket to Hawaii last year. It really saved us alot of money. Full price airfare was around $600 and we only paid the $99 companion fare rate for that ticket. We have had the card for about 10 years now and haven't had any problems. Have seen a occasinal reduction in perks but that is to be expected.

 

[1disneynutt]

Thanks so much for your opinions everyone, keep them coming.

 

[ToodlesRN]

We have this card and have always loved it. However, I seem to be having more trouble lately getting the 25,000 point tickets and the tickets are costing more points to travel on certain days. Also, they charge foreign transaction fees, so if you travel abroad a lot, you might take note. We actually have been researching switching to the Captial One Venture card instead of this one. The $99 companion certificate is great, but it was greater when we first enrolled and it was a $50 companion certificate. The perks used to be a lot better and over time, Alaska has really started to limit this card. It is a disappointment to us because we have always loved it. Our pasts experiences have been awesome with this card, but I worry that as they keep cutting back, they are going to turn into a NWA/Delta where you can't find a ticket for 25,000 unless you book a year in advance or something.

I agree with you on this one, I've seen alot of cutbacks on 25K rewards and times traveling. For example we always travel to CA using the same flight times, well now if we want to use the same flight times it cost us 32k miles instead of the 25k in the past. also loved the $50 campanion tickets!

 

[Piglet99645]

We love it so much, we have TWO! With a family of four, two companion tickets a year is totally worth it.

I love Alaska Airlines. As much as one can love an airline these days.

 

[briangl]

Yes the card has been slipping ($50 -> $99 companion fair, less 25k tickets available, etc.) but we charge $5k / month and always pay in full each month so its still a good deal.

 

[QueenDoOver]

I would read flyertalk.com

There are some amazing cards out there. I am actually cancelling my Alaska this month and switching to Hawaiin for a while. Basically same card, different airlines, 35000 miles and then 25% off of two fares is what they offer. But I am looking to go to Hawaii, and Alaska miles requirement is at least 40,000 round trip and sometimes higher. I have been working hard to get my 130,000 Alaska Air Miles for the last 2.5 years and it still isn't enough to take my family of 4 anywhere!

I am going to use the Hawaiin card and then also a British Air card that just gave me 100K miles, which is enough for 4 roundtrip tickets on Alaska Airlines. Isn't that ironic?

But my next card is likely to be the Starwood Amex card. You can actually convert your starwood points to airline points on most major carries, (including Alaska). For each 20000 points that you convert, Starwood puts 5000 starwood points into your account. So that eventually works out to 1.25 reward points for each dollar spent. Can't beat that. It gets even better. If you convert your starwood points to Lan airlines, they convert to 2 lan airlines miles for each starwood. So convert 20000 into 40000 on Lan, and then fly American Airlines pretty much anywhere in US for 40,000, which really only cost you 20,000 and then don't forget that conversion bonus.

Is your head spinning yet?? Basically, there are a ton of options and you should explore them

 

[splashtastic!]

I have the Alaska Air credit card too and I just booked three round trip tickets from Alaska to John Wayne airport with the mileage I've been saving up. Unlike some of the previous posters, I was able to find TONS of 25,000 mile fares. I'm not sure if this is because I'm leaving from Alaska, or if it's because I booked 6 months in advance. Either way, I figure that I saved $2,740.00 for my family of three. Also, I'm not sure when you would want to use the $99 companion fare, but you will receive it on the one-year anniversary of when you opened your Alaska Airlines credit card account. The caveat is: you book one full-fare ticket and you use the "coupon code" that is unique to your Alaska Airlines account to book the companion fare. The two ticket holders must travel together for the trip, if the full-fare traveler does not travel, the "companion" cannot travel without them. Also, there are taxes and fees associated with flying that you also have to pay. If I remember correctly, (from our area) with the airport fees we have to pay, the average is about $30.

 

[1disneynutt]

The offer I was looking at said that upon approval you would receive a $99 companion ticket and then one every year? I read somewhere, I thought it was here that someone had just used this offer and received bonus miles and companion ticket with their new card?

 

[wannagoback]

Also, I'm not sure when you would want to use the $99 companion fare, but you will receive it on the one-year anniversary of when you opened your Alaska Airlines credit card account. The caveat is: you book one full-fare ticket and you use the "coupon code" that is unique to your Alaska Airlines account to book the companion fare. The two ticket holders must travel together for the trip, if the full-fare traveler does not travel, the "companion" cannot travel without them.

This wasn't quite my experience. We got the companion ticket upon approval and we did not have to wait a year. But you do get the next companion ticket each year on your anniversary. And the way ours is, is that you get the code and the new one expire basically at the same time. For example, our anniversary date is in May. So I have to book a trip by May (travel doesn't have to occur by then). So I could theoretically use two companion tickets for the same trip if I book one right before my code expires, then book the other ticket once I got the new code.

Also, you are right that the full-fare and companion must travel together, but I want to clarify that the full-fare doesn't need to be the account holder. Our visa miles go toward DH's airline miles, but I was able to use the companion ticket to take a trip with a friend. I just had to book it using his account and list him as the purchaser. Actually, I have done this twice now, using his companion ticket code to book a trip that he isn't involved with.

I like the card, but I agree with the PP who said that there are better deals out there. But it is important to realize that the credit card isn't the only way to get the miles. In fact, if you cancel the card you still get to keep your miles. You can get miles for subscribing to the newsletter, for online shopping (similar model to ebates but you et miles instead), and we used to get miles from the grocery store loyalty program but that has been discontinued at our grocery store.

 

[Scotch]

I'm researching the Alaska card and found this old thread. The card offer now is a $99 companion ticket every OTHER year, not the same every year older members got. I'd like to know if pre-existing members are locked into pre-existing terms (e.g., do the ones who used to get that discounted companion ticket every year still get it every year even though new members are getting it every other year)? If not, then this change on top of the change in fare (from $50 to $99) and other changes in benefits posted earlier would lead me to look elsewhere because that is too much evidence of a card whose benefit would keep diminishing on me. I rarely get new credit cards so I'd like to have one that I could keep for awhile (without getting angry about changes in benefits).

 

[Piglet99645]

I had the Alaska card when the companion ticket was $50. A year or two ago it went up to $99 for the companion ticket.... I have not heard anything about it going to every other year!!!!

I will not be happy if this is the case. Let us know what you find out!

 

[Caramel]

I finally convinced my husband to also get the Alaska Visa card so he and I can both use them between us and our two kids. He got the companion ticket credited right away to his account after he opened it. If you don't count our respective annual fees of $150 total, we just saved $1400 on flights to Hawaii using our two companion fares. We anticipate flying at least 2 - 3 times per year so the $75 annual fees won't be an issue. We accumulate extra miles by using the Visas when the Amex can't be used, buying travel with Visa (extra miles), purchasing travel on the web (extra miles.) I'd rather have $50 companion fares and no annual fee, but the cards will still save us a ton of money.

 

[wannagoback]

The info on alaskaair.com about their credit card accounts says that you receive a $99 companion ticket ANNUALLY.

Where did you read otherwise?

 

[1disneynutt]

I just got this card about a month ago because of the perks you were talking about. I received the free miles on my account after the first use of the card. I have checked into using my free ticket for our December trip and there is about 5-10 different flights it can be used on then the amount of points needed jumps to 30,000. I just need to get my tickets before all the 25,000 point flights are gone. I received a $99 companion ticket as well with my welcome packet. I checked into getting tickets just to see how it all worked and you have to enter the promo code onto your alaska airlines account and it saves it in your file until it is used or expires 1 year after issue. You have to purchase a minimum of 2 tickets of course and for example from Seattle to Orange County they charged me $45 tax on each ticket so I am actually paying $144 dollars plus the yearly fee of $75 for my $99 companion ticket which is more than the current price of $98 each way. Also when you book your tickets with the companion code the price of the seat is more than advertised plus the tax? For the free ticket it is worth it but to just get it for the $99 companion fare is not worth it for me since we do not travel that much. I will be cancelling it after our trip.