The 14 Best Ways to Earn Alaska Miles in 2025

Even if you never fly the Seattle-based carrier, you should want to earn Alaska Airlines miles. They’re easily the most valuable miles among the big U.S. airlines … and arguably in the entire world.

Sure, the airline doesn’t fly beyond the U.S., Canada, Mexico, or Central America. But from Europe to Japan to Hong Kong to Fiji, you can use those miles to book flights all around the world on many airline partners that are part of Alaska’s Oneworld alliance – plus other partners outside of the alliance, too. And no matter where you’re going, Alaska’s low mileage rates and cheap taxes and fees mean its miles are often the best way to book virtually any flight.

So what’s the catch? Well, Alaska miles are so valuable that they’re not as easy to earn as with other airlines. You can’t transfer them from major credit cards like Chase, Amex, or Capital One – well, at least not normally…

But they’re well worth working a bit harder to earn. And as you’ll see, a handful of limited-time opportunities combined with the normal methods make it easier than ever to pile up a ton of Alaska miles.

Transfer Amex Membership Rewards Points (for a Limited Time)

There’s one big reason why Alaska miles have been much harder to earn: Unlike most other major U.S. airlines, they didn’t partner with any of the major bank programs like American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Capital One miles, or even Citi ThankYou points. They still don’t.

… at least not directly. But the airline’s merger with Hawaiian has opened a backdoor way to transfer American Express Membership Rewards points to Hawaiian, and then over to Alaska. If you’ve got points from cards like the *amex gold* or *amex platinum*, you’re set. This is a golden opportunity – and arguably the best way to get ultra-valuable Alaska miles easily.

But it likely won’t last much longer. Alaska and Hawaiian are expected to finally merge their loyalty programs sometime “mid-year,” which certainly spells the end of this workaround.

Since Hawaiian Airlines is a 1:1 transfer partner of Amex Membership Rewards (meaning 1,000 Amex points gets you 1,000 Hawaiian miles), you can transfer Amex points to Hawaiian. Once those miles are in your Hawaiian account, you can instantly turn them into Alaska Mileage Plan miles by linking your accounts and transferring miles between the two programs.

One thing to note: Since Hawaiian is a U.S. airline, you’ll be on the hook to pay a small fee – $0.06 cents per point, capped at $99. For example, transferring 45,000 points from Amex to Hawaiian would incur a fee of $27 (or 5,400 points). That’s a small price to pay for turning Amex points into valuable Alaska miles.

amex transfer hawaiian

Earn Miles with Hawaiian Cards Instead (for a Limited Time)

With just two credit cards – one personal, one for small business owners – Alaska itself doesn’t offer a ton of ways to pile up miles using credit cards. Yet again, its ongoing merger with Hawaiian opens some lucrative avenues.

Hawaiian Airlines’ co-branded credit cards may not be long for this world either. But for the time being, you can open one (or both) of the airline’s co-branded credit cards and earn up to 120,000 additional miles.

You should start with the Hawaiian Airlines® World Elite Mastercard®, as they’re some of the easiest miles you’ll ever earn. Forget spending $3,000 or more to earn a big bonus: Make one purchase (whether it’s $1,000 or just $1), pay the card’s $99 annual fee, and you’ll earn 70,000 ~~Hawaiian~~ Alaska Miles.

All information about the Hawaiian Airlines® World Elite Mastercard® has been collected independently by Thrifty Traveler and has not be verified by the issuer.

Hawaiian Credit Card

Learn more about the Hawaiian Airlines® World Elite Mastercard® (for full disclosure, this is not an affiliate link).

Are you eligible to open a small business card? You can also get the Hawaiian Airlines® World Elite Business Mastercard®, which comes with a 50,000-mile bonus after spending $4,000 and paying the $99 annual fee within the first 90 days of card membership.

Whether you get one or both, you can quickly transfer that newfound balance of miles over to Alaska just as soon as they hit your Hawaiian account.

Considering this is a limited-time opportunity – and there’s that incredibly easy-to-earn, 70,000-mile bonus currently available – you’d be wise to start here before moving down the list.

Earn Miles on the Alaska Cards

Of course, Alaska issues a few of its own co-branded credit cards – plus, a new premium credit card is coming later this year. Unlike the Hawaiian cards, however, this opportunity to earn Alaska miles this way won’t be disappearing anytime soon.

With the Alaska Airlines Visa Signature® Card, you can currently earn 70,000 bonus Alaska miles and Alaska’s Famous Companion Fare™ (paying a $99 fare plus taxes and fees, from $23) after spending $3,000 or more within the first 90 days. The card has a $95 annual fee.

Alaska also offers the Alaska Airlines Visa® Business Card, which allows you to earn another 70,000 miles after spending $4,000 in the first 90 days of card membership. The card has a low annual fee of $70, plus $25 for each additional card.

If you’re keeping score at home, that means you could get the Hawaiian and Alaska personal cards, meet the spending requirements, and pay the annual fees, and you’ll have more than 140,000 miles to redeem with Alaska. Throw in the Hawaiian cards above, and that could go as high as 260,000 miles.

Pay Your Rent or Use a Bilt Card

For years, Alaska didn’t have a transfer partner, period. That has changed.

Bilt added Alaska Airlines as a transfer partner last year, becoming the only major rewards program to partner with the Seattle-based airline – excluding that temporary workaround with American Express, of course. Now, travelers can earn points from spending on the *Bilt Mastercard* and transfer them to Alaska Airlines at a 1:1 ratio.

Bilt Rewards Alaska Transfer

Additionally, you can now earn extra Alaska Miles while paying your rent through Bilt.

You’ve got two options: You can use a *Bilt Mastercard* for your monthly rent payments and earn 1x Bilt points (up to 100,000 points per calendar year). Or you can use an Alaska Airlines card instead and earn 3x Alaska miles on the first $50,000 of rent payments each calendar year, as part of Alaska and Bilt’s exclusive partnership.

Just be warned: If you opt to use an Alaska card to earn 3x miles instead of the Bilt Card, you will be hit with a 3% processing fee. Rent payments made with the Bilt Rewards card remain free of additional transaction fees.

Fly With Alaska Airlines … Or a Partner

Yes, this one might seem fairly obvious … but the most straightforward way to earn Alaska miles is to book a flight. And compared to practically every other airline on the planet, you’ll earn more miles when flying with Alaska.

While you now earn miles based on how much you pay with other airlines, Alaska still credits mileage based on the actual distance of your flight. You’ll get bonus miles for higher priced fare classes – and if you’re flying in a premium cabin, you’ll earn even more miles, depending on your fare class.

That’s a boon for earning miles flying Alaska, especially if you live on the West Coast where Alaska has a heavy presence. The one exception? Alaska’s cheapest basic economy tickets – Alaska calls them “saver fares” – only earn 30% of total miles flown.

Bags Late? Get 2,500 Alaska Miles

Delta may be most famous for giving customers bonus miles when luggage takes too long, but you should add Alaska to the list.

Like Delta, Alaska also offers a 20-minute baggage guarantee: If your bags don’t make it to the carousel within 20 minutes of your plane’s arrival to the gate, they’ll give you a $25 discount code for a future flight – or 2,500 Alaska Mileage Plan miles!

Unfortunately, there’s no way to claim those miles online. You’ll need to speak to an Alaska customer service representative at the airport – within two hours of your flight – in order to get your miles.

Transfer Marriott Bonvoy Points

Transferring hotel points to airlines is generally a poor value, but Marriott can be an exception. You can transfer Marriott Bonvoy points to over 40 different airline partners, including Alaska, at a 3:1 ratio.

So if you transfer 60,000 Marriott points to your Alaska account, you’ll get 20,000 Alaska Miles. But there’s a sweetener: You’ll get a 5,000-mile bonus when you transfer at least 60,000 Marriott points. That means 60,000 Bonvoy points gets you 25,000 miles. A transfer of 120,000 Bonvoy points nets you 50,000 airline miles. You get the picture.

Still, this method of earning Alaska Miles is probably only best in a pinch if you need a few thousand more Alaska Miles to book a flight … or if you’ve simply got more Marriott Bonvoy points than you know what to do with.

Click through Alaska Airlines’ Shopping Portal

Alaska’s Mileage Plan Shopping portal gives you plenty of opportunities to earn more points at select online retailers. Just click directly through to the retailers from the Mileage Plan Shopping site and make your purchase as normal.

Mileage Plan Shopping Portal webpage

For example, you could earn 4,000 Alaska miles after purchasing a meal kit subscription from Blue Apron and a few other websites. For most online shops, you’ll earn your bonus Alaska miles based on how much you spend.

The program also features a Google Chrome plug-in, which could give you an instant nudge when online retailer you’re scoping out is offering bonus Alaska miles.

Best of all: You are can use any credit card you want – you don’t need an Alaska credit card to earn these miles shopping online. Unfortunately, you just can’t stack these purchases with another shopping portal like Rakuten.

Dine and Earn Through Mileage Plan Dining

The Mileage Plan Dining program allows Alaska flyers to earn miles while dining out at select local restaurants.

Just for signing up, you’ll earn 500 Alaska miles. Link a few of your credit cards and search for participating restaurants where you can earn Alaska points. New members will start as “Basic members,” earning 1 mile for every $2 spent. That isn’t a great return … but it’s just the beginning.

If you agree to receive email communications from Mileage Plan Dining, you’ll start to earn 3 miles per dollar as a “Select member.” And once you opt in for emails and complete at least 11 transactions, you’ll become a “VIP member” and earn 5 miles per dollar!

Some restaurants will even give you bonus points for making and completing a reservation on top of your spending.

There is no cap on the how many miles you can earn, aside from some limits that select restaurants establish individually. It’s a great way to earn some additional Alaska miles when you’re out to eat.

Link Your Lyft Account to Alaska Mileage Plan

Alaska and Lyft currently have a partnership that allows you to earn bonus Alaska Miles on your rides.

Link your Alaska and Lyft accounts and you can earn 1 Alaska Mile per dollar spent on all Lyft rides. That’s in addition to any points, miles, or cashback you earn based on spending on your credit card.

Lyft and Alaska account linking webpage

Book Car Rentals Through Rental Agencies

Need to rent a car? Make sure you’re earning Alaska Miles.

Rather than earning credits with the car rental company, you can credit those rentals to your Mileage Plan account instead! It’s a little-known option but an easy way to earn some extra Alaska Miles. For every qualifying rental, you’ll earn 500 Alaska Miles.

Alaska has partnerships with Avis, Budget, Hertz, Dollar Car Rental, Thrifty Car Rental, Alamo, and National.

We’re partial to National because of the Free Executive Status that comes with a handful of travel rewards credit cards.

Book Cruises Through Alaska Cruises

You can also earn Alaska Miles by booking a cruise. And if you book by Feb. 28, you’ll earn even more of them: Alaska is currently offering 3 Alaska Miles per dollar spent on cruises.

After that, the return will drop to the norm of 1 mile for every $1 spend on cruises (excluding taxes and fees). Simply start the booking process at alaskaair.com/content/deals/cruises to start earning.

Alaska Cruises webpage banner

Buy Alaska Miles (Or Hawaiian Miles)

Whether you’re just a few Alaska miles short of a big redemption or trying to book a top-dollar business or first class award ticket, it could make sense to buy some Alaska miles.

In normal times, Alaska generally charges 2.75 cents per mile – with a requirement to buy them in increments of 1,000. That means buying 2,000 miles would cost you $55. That’s a lot to pay for just a few thousand miles.

Purchase Alaska Miles webpage

But Alaska is among the few airlines where it can make sense to buy miles, largely due to its frequent sales and discounts when buying miles. Alaska Airlines regularly sells miles with a bonus of up to 60% or even 70%, typically with a minimum purchase of at 40,000.

Combine a big sale with a big award ticket that otherwise might cost you thousands of dollars, and it could easily be worth considering.

It’s also worth exploring buying Hawaiian miles instead, as you can transfer those to Alaska on a 1:1 basis … at least for now. Hawaiian also regularly sells its miles at a steep discount, including recent bonuses as big as 100%. That could make it considerably cheaper to buy Hawaiian miles versus Alaska miles outright.

Transfer Your Alaska Miles to Another Member

You can transfer Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles to the account of a friend or family member … but it’ll cost you dearly.

You can transfer miles in increments of 1,000 at a cost of $10 per 1,000 miles – plus a $25 processing fee per transaction. There’s a cap of 30,000 miles per transaction.

Alaska Transfer Miles

So if you were looking to transfer 30,000 Alaska Mileage Plan miles to another user, it would cost you $325 ($300 for the miles and a $25 processing fee). Save your money: Don’t do it if you don’t have to.

Alaska caps these transfers at 100,000 miles in or out of an account per calendar year.

Bottom Line

Whether you live near an Alaska hub airport or not, Alaska Miles are absolutely worth earning.

Luckily, there are tons of great ways to earn big bonuses and keep adding to your stash. And in 2025, there are more methods to do so than ever before.

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This article has been archived by Slow Travel News for your research. The original version from Thrifty Traveler can be found here.