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Alaska Airlines’ Mileage Plan program is by far my favorite
airline loyalty domestically, with the ability to use miles on various partners
for luxury travel including Cathay Pacific, Qantas, and Emirates.
However, miles are relatively hard to earn, since there are
only a handful of credit card & transfer partners. One of Alaska’s main transfer partners is Starwood, which
typically converts at a 1:1 ratio, with a bonus of 5000 miles for every 20,000
points transferred.
However, from now until January 6th, there is
rather unique arbitrage opportunity that’ll give you a 62.5% bonus when converting Starpoints into Alaska miles.
Here’s the rundown:
When Alaska Airlines finalized its acquisition of Virgin
America in December, it was announced that starting on January 9th,
each Virgin America point will converted into Alaska Mileage Plan miles with an
additional 30% bonus.
Starpoints also convert to Virgin American points at a 1:1
ratio, with a bonus of 5000 miles for every 20,000 points transferred. Starpoint
transfers to Virgin America need to be initiated by January 6th as
Virgin America will cease to be a partner of SPG after that date.
On January 9th you’ll be able to convert your Virgin
America points into Alaska Miles a 30% bonus, meaning for each 20,000 SPG
points you’ll end up with 32,500 Alaska miles, making 1 Starpoint worth 1.625
Alaska miles, which is an incredible deal!
Should you do it?
I love Alaska’s relatively cheap award chart for certain
first class redemption. With the limited transfer bonus, a one way ticket from
the United States to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific’s first class would cost only
43,076 Starwood points, which is a bargain!
With a 62.5% bonus, I’d easily recommend transferring a few Starwood points to Alaska Airlines for future travel.
Note: You are limited to three transfers of 20,000 Starwood
points daily to receive the transfer bonus in full.
