Alaska Airline miles are some of the most valuable airline miles around, thanks to their many airline partners and generous award routing rules. As such, people seek them out and are willing to pay for them when there are mileage sales.
You Can Now Use Alaska Airline Miles for Hotels
Link: Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan for Hotels
Yet, apparently, there have been many Alaska Airline Mileage Plan members who have been asking for the ability to use these precious miles on hotels. Well, if that is you, then you can be happy as today they have made this possible. I am happy because I hope a lot of people will use their miles this way and stave off future airline award devaluations! 🙂
Here is what Alaska had to say about this “Redeeming miles for hotels was among the most requested enhancements to Mileage Plan, and our members now have the ability to redeem valuable Alaska miles for both flights and hotels,” said Ryan Butz, Alaska Airlines’ managing director of loyalty. “This is particularly exciting for our Alaska Airlines credit cardholders, who will have access to discounted award pricing through Mileage Plan Hotels. Our Alaska Airlines Visa Signature® cardholders not only earn Alaska miles on everyday purchases and save with our companion fare offer and free checked bags, but now have another way to use those miles. It’s now the only credit card Alaska flyers need.”
Alaska Airlines has expanded a partnership with Rocketmiles (the website that will give you miles on your regular hotel bookings) to both earn and redeem miles for hotel rooms. In addition, you can also choose to mix and match miles and cash for hotel bookings you want to use your miles on.
Cardmembers Get Bigger Discounts
If you are an Alaska Airlines credit cardholder, you will receive bigger mileage discounts on the amount of miles required to book at hotels. There are certain hotels that have “exclusive cardmember pricing” discounts (though that seems to be the majority of hotels on searches I made).
Search Examples
This is for a 5 night stay in New York City at the Park Hyatt without being an Alaska credit cardholder
This is the same property for the same dates and having an Alaska credit card – a 100K point savings
When you search for this same property directly through Hyatt, you get a total of $6,329 for the 5 nights. That means that Alaska credit card holders would be getting a mile value of .67 cents per mile. Yeah, not good at all!
Checking Washington, DC with another chain, here is what we get.
This is the price for a 5 night stay in Washington, DC without having an Alaska credit card
This is the price for the same property and dates but having a Alaska credit card
The cost for booking the same room through SPG directly
This one is slightly better at .7 cents per mile. Yeah, still not good!
ON THE OTHER HAND, if you were to choose to earn miles instead and booked through Alaska, the above hotel would give you 29,000 Alaska miles for your stay.
Should You Do This?
On the searches I made, it definitely appears that being a cardmember will help you out on the mileage pricing! For some hotels, it was as much as 100,000 miles in savings (granted, this was a hotel that wanted over 1 million miles for a 5 night stay!).
While I am all for flexibility when it comes to using miles, I would have to say that I don’t think I would ever use my Alaska miles to book a hotel. I understand that there will be those that could get more of a use out of them that way but I cannot see myself being one of them.
Earn Miles? Sure!
On the other hand, if you are not booking with a chain hotel (or you don’t want elite benefits/credits), then you could book cash rates through the link above and earn Alaska miles for your hotel stays!
Source: PRN
Featured image courtesy of Chris Parypa Photography | Courtesy of Shutterstock
do you think the miles you earn through paying cash for a room is good enough? As oppose to Hotels.com where you get a night free after 10 stays, does Alaska give enough of a value to go with them instead?
I think it is definitely going to be a case-by-case basis. The prices will likely be better with other places like hotels.com but it may be a negligible difference in some cases, especially if you need to top up for an award.
Alaska is frankly grasping at straws to keep Mileage Plan competitive with airlines that are in global alliances. Mileage Plan has mismanaged several partner relationships with American, Delta, KLM, Air France, Aeromexico all of whom have left the program. The cost to redeem miles on British Airways is far more expensive than it is for United members for example redeeming on their international partners. This move with Rocket miles is pretty sad. Alaska has no leverage with major hotel partners or major airlines partners. At the same time, they have made a very expensive acquisition of Virgin America and need to compete in larger markets in both the Bay Area and Southern California.
Alaska needs to be a FULL One World or Star Alliance member to compete. A bad deal to make hotel bookings at a high cost is not going to cut it. It’s time to stop the amateur hour.