As soon as this offer came out yesterday it quickly made the rounds on the frequent flyer blogs and forums. Makes sense as it is a great deal! Alaska Airlines is promoting their frequent flyer partnership with Fiji Airways with two promotions - one for earning miles and one for redeeming miles. The earn miles, is simple - double Mileage Plan miles on Fiji Airways flights booked by February 29 and flown by June 30, 2020. But it is the redemption offer that is the star here as it offers up to 50% off the regular mileage amounts required to redeem Mileage Plan miles for Fiji Airways flights. Add in the fact that you can add in one free stop over on these redemption options and you have a true star. That means you can fly to Australia, New Zealand and other destinations with a free stopover in Fiji for only 20,000 Mileage Plan miles each way in Economy Class or 40,000 miles each way in Business Class. When the offer came out there wasn't much Business Class inventory available on Fiji Airways flights out of San Francisco or Los Angeles and with all the blogs covering it many of those were gobbled up quick - especially on Fiji Airways' new Airbus A350 flight out of LAX as that plane has their new business class with lie flat seats. There is still some business class availability out there but you'll have to spend some time searching for it. There is however tons of availability for economy class so those are much easier to find and redeem for!
Here are some examples of what is available:
Calgary - Fiji in April
But still - for only 40,000 miles round trip and US$191 in fees this is deal that makes those connections and travel times potentially worthwhile!
Here is Vancouver for April as well:
Accumulating Mileage Plan miles isn't that hard in Canada since Alaska Airlines has their co-brand credit cards with MBNA. In fact, you could conceivably still apply for one now and try to push a lot of purchases on it this month (January) to have the miles post to your account in February to book by the February 29 deadline for this promotion. The main issue however is availability - while there is lots right now there is no guarantee that there will be availability by February 29. The MBNA Alaska Airlines World Elite Mastercard comes with a 30,000 Mileage Plan miles welcome bonus when you spend $1,000 on the card, meaning you'd have 31,000 miles. Spend an additional $9,000 to get you to that 40,000 mile level for this offer. That's a lot to spend but maybe just maybe one of you are buying a car or doing a home reno where you can drop that kind of cash right away on the card!
You could also choose to buy Mileage Plan miles however they don't have a bonus for doing so right now so I would only buy them if you need to top off your account with a few thousand miles to take advantage of this offer. If you don't have any miles I wouldn't advise it - it is US$1,182.50 plus GST/HST to buy 40,000 miles as you an buy flights to Fiji for around the same price and you'll earn miles on the flights (in fact double if you register and credit them to Alaska) and earn your elite status qualifying as well.
For more details on the up to 50% off redemption offer click here and click here for details on the double miles offer!
Did you catch this offer when it first came out yesterday? Were you perhaps one of the lucky ones to get in on the business class option? Or even economy class? Will you jump on it now as a result of our post? Let us know in the comments below!
