AwardWallet receives compensation from advertising partners for links on the blog. Terms Apply to the offers listed on this page. The opinions expressed here are our own and have not been reviewed, provided, or approved by any bank advertiser. Here's our complete list of Advertisers.
Alaska Mileage Plan Miles do not expire as long as your account is active. Keeping your account active is defined by Alaska Mileage Plan as earning or redeeming at least one mile in a 24-month period.
Complete terms on Mileage Plan expiration are as follows:
Mileage Plan miles do not have an expiration date and may remain in an active account indefinitely, provided that the Mileage Plan program has not been terminated pursuant to these conditions of membership. Activity in an account includes redeeming a Mileage Plan award or accruing mileage in the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan program. However, notwithstanding any term to the contrary, if a Mileage Plan account is inactive for 2 years, Alaska Airlines may close the account, delete any mileage balance and reassign the Mileage Plan number. Deleted mileage can be reinstated for a fee for up to 1 year. To reinstate a Mileage Plan account please contact customer care.
How To Earn Alaska Mileage Plan Miles?
Aside from flying Alaska, there is a wide range of options to earn Mileage Plan miles, including:
- Earn miles by flying one of Alaska’s airline partners. Partners include American Airlines, Emirates, Cathay Pacific, and — as of March 31, 2021 — all other Oneworld airlines
- Link your Alaska Mileage Plan account to earn miles for your hotel stays at Alaska's hotel partners — including IHG, Best Western, and Marriott Bonvoy
- Earn miles when you rent a car with Alaska’s car rental partners — including Avis, Dollar, and Hertz
- Earn miles when you shop through Alaska’s shopping portal
- Earn miles for eating out when you use Alaska’s dining portal
- You can also earn miles on a wide range of everyday purchases from flowers to wines, with Alaska’s everyday partners
- Earn miles by spending on an Alaska Airlines co-branded credit card:
How Can I Redeem Alaska Mileage Plan Miles?
When it comes to redeeming Alaska Mileage Plan miles, your options include:
- Redeem your miles for flights on Alaska Airlines — including money and miles fares
- Redeem miles for first-class upgrades on Alaska Airlines flights
- Redeem your miles with Alaska’s airline partners
- Redeem miles for flights with Alaska's Oneworld partners
- Use your Miles for magazine subscriptions, including Health, Time, and Fortune
- You can share, gift, or donate your miles to good causes, such as Make-A-Wish or Hero Miles
Alaska Joins the Oneworld Alliance
Alaska announced that it was joining Oneworld in early 2020. After some back-and-forth, Alaska formally joined on March 31, 2021 as a fully-fledged member. However, Alaska is still ironing out redemption rates and other details of the relationship. So, check out our post about Alaska's Oneworld relationship for the latest.
What If Your Mileage Plan Miles Expire?
If you have let your miles expire, it's not a lost cause. You can reactivate your account and reclaim your lost miles by contacting Alaska’s customer care line at 1-800-654-5669. You can reinstate deleted balances for a $75 fee for up to 1 year after the deletion date.
Our Take
For a loyalty program that still lets miles expire, Alaska Mileage Plan has one of the better expiration policies. Along with high average redemption rates and great sweet spots, Alaska Mileage Plan remains one of our favorite frequent flyer programs. And it's gone from strength to strength in 2021 by joining the Oneworld alliance.
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
Yes, thanks @Rosario
“Congratulations – you’ve completed your first survey! Your account will be credited with 400.0 Alaska Airlines bonus miles as a welcome gift.”
Just one hour after signing up.
Cool
I signed up for The Opinion Terminal, which was a little convoluted but allowed me to earn Alaska Miles at no charge. They’re renewed for another 24 months after that!
Good that Alaska Mileage Plan has several possibilities of earning miles and so extending the expiration of them.
Alaska is also one of the best airline in term of flight on time schedule and service as well. Too bad that Alaska airline does not offer too many flight destinations in East coast.
Can someone tell me with the merge of Alaska airlines and One alliance, if I travel in Alaska airline, this will renew my Alaska miles, but what about AA miles? Will AA miles be renewed?
It all depends on which airline mileage program you list in the reservation. If you list your AA number, you’ll earn AAdvantage miles (and elite credits). If you list your Alaska number, you’ll get Mileage Plan miles instead.
If you’re worried about your American miles expiring, you don’t have to anymore! By commenting on this post, you’ll earn 5 miles. All you need to do is log into your AwardWallet account and refresh this page. Here’s the full details: https://awardwallet.com/blog/earn-bonus-miles-for-commenting/
if a Mileage Plan account is inactive for 2 years, Alaska Airlines may close the account, delete any mileage balance and reassign the Mileage Plan number… hope this never happens with me. Thats why awardwallet is great
Just wondering whether outside of buying miles or donating miles to charity whether there are any other non-travel methods of keeping Mileage Plan miles from expiring for people based in the UK? The shopping portal is not available to Europe.
The Alaska shopping portal is the easiest way to keep your miles from expiring if you are in a situation where you cannot fly Alaska regularly but now that Alaska has joined OW, i think its going to be easier to keep them from expiring
Alaska Mileage Plan certainly is more interesting now they have joined Oneworld but what put me off more than anything is that partner flights don’t count towards lifetime status. Whilst it is good that the expiry policy for miles is reasonably generous, I think I’ll be crediting Oneworld flights elsewhere.
Great use of the Mileage Plan dining program is to reset the clock on your account’s expiration. Alaska does not fly a lot from my part of the country, but with them joining OneWorld those Alaska miles just became a lot more valuable. Keeping the miles current with occasional small purchases is quite helpful.
Can’t believe they still don’t change their points expiration policy during COVID.
I make a reservation at a hotel with miles and then cancel it. With that, they are renewed
Alaska airlines has always had a more generous policy than most of the others.
I typically don’t have any issues keeping my Alaska miles from expiring because I fly on Alaska quite often but the shopping portal was very useful in maintaining my parents’s Alaska miles. The miles posted to their accounts in less than a week.
To keep my Alaska miles active, I use their shopping portal. It’s super easy, and hundreds of stores participate, including Walmart and Home Depot. I made a $20 purchase at Walmart which gives a 10 mile award and keeps my Alaska account active for another 2 years. Here’s their shopping portal: https://www.mileageplanshopping.com/
Going to burn my miles before the inevitable devaluation. Long-term, probably a merge with American
Wouldn’t it involve a full merger with AA?
Great new please share the Link to survey.
Looks like this is the survey program they were referencing: https://www.theopinionterminal.com/
One of the overlooked, by too many, programs. Would rather have AS points over any other US program.
But also can confirm what Johnann said before: no miles will expire before 1/1/22!
Dear askmrlee,
Please give us the actual link or specific steps how to find this survey on Alaska website. Tried to find it and even contacted their customer service but no success.
Appreciate your help.
— Eugene
I just earned 25 miles by completing a survey – much cheaper than other options! It’s shown on Alaska Air’s site as an option.
Also there’s a 400 mile enrollment bonus after you complete your first survey.
Great! I’ll have to do this, as Alaska’s on my bucket list.
hi, do you have a link of the survey , thanks.
ARE THEY EXTENDING THE DATE FOR AIR MILES INTO NEXT YEAR DO TO COVID 19 THANKS
To extend the validity of my miles, I donated 1000 Alaska miles to a charity listed on the Alaska site. Is there a cheaper way to extend my Alaska miles?
There sure is! If it were me, I’d make an online purchase through the Alaska travel portal to generate activity.
Hey,
Just wanted to ask , is buying miles counted as an activity to not delete my account? Lets say if i were to buy the 1000 miles for $27.50, will that help not delete my account?
Alaska’s T&C are a bit convoluted. But yes, buying miles would be qualifying activity.
“Mileage Plan miles can be accrued by:
– Flying on Alaska Airlines designated flights
– Using an eligible credit card for qualifying purchases
– Using the services of a Mileage Plan partner (including our programs to buy, share, or gift miles)
– Promotional bonus miles awarded by Alaska Airlines or one of its Mileage Plan partners
…
Mileage Plan miles do not have an expiration date and may remain in an active account indefinitely, provided that the Mileage Plan program has not been terminated pursuant to these conditions of membership. Activity in an account includes redeeming a Mileage Plan award or accruing mileage in the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan program. However, notwithstanding any term to the contrary, if a Mileage Plan account is inactive for 2 years, Alaska Airlines may close the account, delete any mileage balance and reassign the Mileage Plan number.”
There is even a cheaper one 🙂
Just book a cheapest award flight I could find (for 5K miles + $5.60) and cancelled it for free immediately (free within 24 hours). -5K, +5K => activity on the account, and another 2 years not to worry about.
Good luck.
Interesting. And that extended the expiration date? I’d be worried that Alaska would negate the activity in the account.
A charity donation is always a good thing though; you don’t always need to buy something just to use up points.
My Alaska miles are about to expire but I have yet to find the right time to use them. If I were to book a trip in the future with the points. If I cancel it, do I get the points back or will I lose them as a way to extend the points?
I’m not 100% sure if that will work. I think the date should reset if you book a trip in the future and then cancel. However, the mechanism for this to work is that the miles need to be deducted from your account, so if you book and cancel within 24 hours to avoid a cancel fee, it might not be enough time to trigger the activity. If time is short, maybe donate 1k miles to charity.
The miles deducted instantly, and refunded instantly. At least for the main routs on Alaska (not sure about the partners). All in all less than 10 min, and the message about the account going inactive disappeared. Good luck.
Anyone see that Amtrak change their expiration from 3 years to 2 years without notice?
And you can’t log into your account without accepting the new terms to check…
Is Points.com still active? Was going to see about transferring miles thru it to Alaska, but my login is disabled. When you click the support link, that doesn’t work either – says send an email that they may respond to within 5 days.
hope that I can keep my miles active
Thank you to the person that mentioned we can keep our kids Alaska mileage account active by using the shopping portal. We use Groupon, Macy’s, Nordstrom Rack which are one of the hundreds of shops Alaska allows to earn miles. I went to their website, then mileage plan, then shopping to get into the portal. Just have to earn one point in 24 months to keep their, or your account active. Cool.
Will the miles given out by Alaska Air for promotion purposes extend the expiration date of my miles?
Not knowing what promotion you’re specifically mentioning we can’t speculate. That said, based on our experience, any activity tends to keep an account active.
I had a Mileage Plan account quite a while back which I didn’t use and the account ended up expiring. Funny thing is that Alaska continues to send me promotional emails referencing the account that no longer exists.
I wish their kids accounts did not have the two year activity rule (like Aeroplan).
I have to buy some miles with Points.com just to keep his account active.
Delta just increased the cost of many international fares using partners without accouncement in the past week: https://awardwallet.com/blog/delta-devastates-partner-awards-massive-price-hike/
One of the best, if not the best current frequent flyer program!
So like pretty much all other miles? Seems like thats the standard for most point based currencies
It is indeed similar to the overwhelming majority of most programs.
Alaska Airlines is probably the best airline loyalty program right now. Delta with the ever changing increase in award travel is slowly going to the bottom.
These transfer 1:1 to American right?
Alaska miles DO NOT transfer to American at any ratio. That said, you can use Alaska miles to book flights on American. As long as sAAver space shows at AA.com for a flight, you should have no problem booking that flight using Alaska miles either online at AlaskaAir.com or by calling up Alaska Mileage Plan customer support.
And I assume all transfers from Virgin Elevate to Mileage Plan count as eligible activity to keep the balance?
Anyone have a data point on this to share?
Yeah, I’d like to know this too!
Alaska is one of the better programs even after their devaluations
I really like AS as I’ve only had good experiences flying them. I especially like their Mileage Plan program and find it exceptionally easy to keep the account active. Thx for covering all the ways this can be done as it’s easy to lose sight of those methods one might not use often.
I didn’t know Alaska had a shopping portal. That’s perfect for me to refresh my Alaska account.
It’s good of them to be so reasonable on their reinstatement policy. There are some airlines that won’t reinstate at all.
Does Hyatt partner with Alaska?
Unfortunately, no.
Earning through one of their partners (Carmel Limousine in NYC and other USA cities) is also a great way of extending mileage expiration.
The co-branded card isn’t anything special, but the companion ticket alone makes it worth having.
My new favorite airline loyalty program!
Southwest is still by far the best program with chase credit card. They have a shopping portal as well, points don’t expire, and you barely need many points (1point per dollar, or sometimes up to 5 per dollar depending on your shopping through their portal) to get even a one way get away fare.
One way sometimes is only 4-5,000 points domestically. It seems that most airlines, you have to rack up 50,000 points just to get a discount on a flight or a one way domestically.
Southwest has a terrible mileage program simply because their planes lack a first class section. I always fly on airlines like Alaska because I have a choice of flying in coach or first class
They have a good program. Award availability is pretty good. Hopefully will improve with Virgin in the fold.
The best sign up offer I have seen is 30000miles + $100statement credit + extra 1000miles sign up bonus from employee referral. Haven’t seen such an offer for a while.
Does Alaska Airlines historically offer targeted sign-up offers on its branded credit card above the usual 30k miles?
Haven’t seen anything over 30k in a while.