A flying start to a new year! Alaska Airlines are offering up to a 40% bonus when you buy 5,000 or more miles (up to 60,000 miles) 40% bonus on 10,000 miles or more purchased through March 17, 2019. The offer is targeted. But even if you were targeted, should you buy?

The bonus is tiered

• Buy 0 – 10,000 miles = no bonus
• Buy 10,000 – 60,000 miles = 40% bonus

Here’s the fine print on the Alaska miles bonus

• Transactions must be completed between 6:00 AM PST March 11, 2019 and 11:59 PM PST March 17, 2019 to be eligible for bonus miles.
• Miles are purchased from Points.com Inc. for a cost of $27.50 per 1,000 miles, plus a 7.5% Federal Excise Tax*, and GST/HST for Canadian residents.
• Miles are non-refundable and do not count toward MVP and MVP/Gold status.
• You may purchase and gift Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles in increments of 1,000 miles to a maximum of 60,000 miles per transaction.
• Your Mileage Plan account may be credited up to a maximum total of 150,000 miles acquired through Points.com in a calendar year, whether purchased by you or gifted to you.
• MVP, MVP Gold and MVP Gold 75K Mileage Plan member accounts have no annual limit on the number of miles which may be purchased or gifted through Points.com.

Let’ do the math. Normally, each 1,000 Alaska miles would cost $29.56 with tax included, that is 2.9 cents per mile, pretty steep cost! Nobody values Alaska miles at more than 2 cents per mile, so at the normal rate, it doesn’t make sense to buy.

What about with the 40% bonus? To be eligible for the promotion, you have to be targeted. And you need to buy AT LEAST 10,000 miles to get the full 40% bonus, for a total of 42,000 miles (including 12,000 bonus miles). If you buy 30,000 miles, the purchase will set you back $825.00 including tax, averaging 1.96 cents per mile. This is still not a great purchase price, but a lot better than the normal rate!

Conclusion

Purchased points or airline miles can represent great value sometimes. But as always, you need to crunch the numbers to ensure it makes sense.

(SEE ALSO: When is buying airline miles worth it? In ONLY these 3 instances…)

During the past two years, Alaska has offered bonus on purchase points about four times a year, and the maximum bonus ranged from 30% to 40%. So the current promotion is about as high as it’s been. As I always say, if you don’t have an urgent need for Alaska miles, I would recommend waiting for the next promotion.  I generally would only buy Alaska miles or any other type of miles or points if you have a specific short-term need for them

Buy Alaska miles here through March 17th