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Two excellent offers are floating around right now for the Alaska Airlines credit card from Bank of America:

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It might surprise you to learn that the bonus of 30,000 miles is far better than the bonus of 40,000 miles.

Why? Why do I love Alaska miles?

I was emailed the 30,000 mile offer three days ago since I am “a valued customer of both Alaska Airlines and Bank of America.” I have an Alaska Airlines credit card. Other than that, I am not a customer of Bank of America, and I have never flown Alaska.

Reader Stuart forwarded me the 40,000 mile offer that touted that “it pays to be an Elite Member.”

Despite the words in each email, I can only conclude that both offers are open to everyone since both applications load by clicking on their links:

Counter-intuitively, the smaller offer is superior.

The 30k mile offer gives you all the miles on first purchase. The 40k mile offer give you only 25k miles on first purchase and the last 15k bonus miles after spending $10k on the card. (That means you’ll have 50k total miles–40k bonus plus 10k for spending.)

Instead of spending $10k on an Alaska Airlines card that earns 1 mile per dollar, you could open up the Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express and the Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express which each offer 25k bonus Starpoints after spending $5k in the first six months. The $10k would cover both their minimum spending requirements, unlocking 50k bonus points plus 10k points for spending the $10k itself.

Option 1:

Get the 40k bonus card. Spend $10k on it. Have 50k Alaska Airlines miles.

Option 2:

Get the 30k bonus card and both SPG cards. Spend $5k on each SPG card ($10k total). Have 30k Alaska miles and 60k SPG points–50k bonus plus 10k for spending. 60k SPG points can transfer to 75k Alaska miles, so this scenario leaves you with up to 105k Alaska miles for the same amount of spending.

Option 2, the smaller bonus Alaska card plus SPG cards, gets you a lot more Alaska miles for the same amount of spending.

Key Links:

Why Do You Want Alaska Miles?

It is the Best Program to Redeem Miles for Emirates First Class. It also has a ton of other unique partners, fair award chart prices, one way awards, and stopovers on those one way awards.

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Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.

Just getting started in the world of points and miles? The Chase Sapphire Preferred is the best card for you to start with.

With a bonus of 60,000 points after $4,000 spend in the first 3 months, 5x points on travel booked through the Chase Travel Portal and 3x points on restaurants, streaming services, and online groceries (excluding Target, Walmart, and wholesale clubs), this card truly cannot be beat for getting started!


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