Alaska Airlines has a promotion for those looking to buy miles. You can get a bonus of up to 40%. Offers might vary from one account to the other.

Promotion Page

Offer

Buy miles and land up to 40% bonus miles, now through February 22, 2019.

• Buy 5,000 — 19,000 miles = 20% bonus
• Buy 20,000 — 29,000 miles = 30% bonus
• Buy 30,000 — 60,000 miles = 40% bonus

Miles are purchased from Points.com for a cost of $27.50 per 1,000 miles, plus a 7.5% Federal Excise Tax. So if you go for the maximum bonus, it will cost you 1.97 cents per mile. Anything less than that won’t really make sense for most people.

Offer Terms

• Transactions must be completed between 6:00 AM PST January 24, 2019 and 11:59 PM PST February 22, 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.

Should You Buy Alaska Miles?

I’m not a fan of buying miles and points. You will never be able to buy miles at a price that’s better than the average valuation. If you need a big chunk of points, then signup bonuses are probably the best route, or you can check out ways to earn miles without credit cards. But buying miles could make sense in some instances. In this case you need to purchase at least 30K miles to get the best bonus.

Alaska miles are valued at about 1.7 cents each in my opinion. With this promotion you’re buying them for 2.1 cents each. So it’s definitely not worth buying speculatively. Could be worth it for premium international flights.

Guru’s Wrap-Up

I would suggest looking at credit cards first, if you need Alaska miles. If you do plan to buy Alaska miles with this promotion, try going through a portal as well to earn some cashback and use a card that earn at least 2%.