Alaska Airlines Visa Card

I’ve talked about the credit cards of most of the airlines I fly regularly on here but not the Alaska Airlines credit card.  The main reason for skipping over it is that I never credit any flights to Alaska because Alaska is partners with BA and AA, which are my main two airlines I collect points with.  However, Alaska often manages to punch above its weight class when it comes to benefits for its customers and strategy.  The question now is if its credit card also provides strong benefits for its $95 annual fee.

I provide the information here just to give readers a vague idea if the rewards offered by the card might make sense for them to consider the card.  The information on this page has been collected independently, and all information should be confirmed with the card company before applying.

Welcome Offer

At the time of posting, the Alaska Airlines card has an enhanced welcome offer of 60 000 bonus miles plus a Companion Fare voucher.  The Companion Fare works as a 2-for-1 voucher, where if you buy one ticket, you can get a second ticket for $99 + taxes and fees.  The spending requirement is $3 000 in the first 90 days after account opening.  I’m not too familiar with Alaska Airlines miles, but they have some strong award program sweet spots, and a good points value estimate for them is around 1.5 ¢/pt.  That makes this welcome offer worth at least $900, which is good for a $95 annual fee card.  It’s hard for me to peg a value on the Companion Fare voucher since I usually travel alone.

Earnings

The Alaska Airlines card has a pretty standard 3-tier structure: 3x miles/$ on Alaska Airlines purchases; 2x miles/$ on gas, EV charging, cable, streaming services, and local transit, as well as 1x mile/$ on everything else. 

Benefits

For its $95 annual fee, this card provides a fair number of benefits to justify the annual fee.  The one that they advertise the most is that you can earn a Companion Fare (separate from the welcome offer) after you spend at least $6 000/year on the card, which is a remarkably low spend threshold.

The card also offers the standard free checked bag and priority boarding that you’d expect based on other full service airlines’ ~$100 free credit cards.  In addition, the card offers 20% back on Alaska Airlines inflight purchases and $100 off an Alaska Lounge+ Membership when charged to the card.  The card is also eligible for a version of Bank of America’s bonus rewards if you have “an eligible” (non-credit card) account.

How to use the points

The main use for Alaska Airlines miles is to redeem them for Alaska Airlines, Oneworld, and other partners’ flights.  When I was in college, I had some Alaska miles, but I only ever used them once for a flight from LA to SF for my friends because they were about to expire anyway.  I’ve read that Alaska has some really good redemption sweet spots, but since saver award availability on Oneworld partners has recently been very hard to come by, it’s somewhat unclear how useful this benefit is.  Alaska Airlines is does not partner with any major transferrable currencies, and so Alaska miles are somewhat harder to come by otherwise.

Examples of using the card

These examples assume you spend all your airfare budget on Alaska and that your general travel expenses are all local transit.

Spend per month

	Example A		Example B		Example C		Example D
Groceries (1x)	$300	300	$200	200	$600	600	$400	400
Gas (2x)	$0	0	$100	200	$200	400	$100	200
Airfare (3x)	$700	2 100	$200	600	$0	0	$400	1 200
Hotels (1x)	$1 000	1 000	$200	200	$0	0	$300	300
Gen Travel (2x)	$400	800	$0	0	$300	600	$100	200
Dining (1x)	$600	600	$300	300	$300	300	$0	0
General (1x)	$1 000	1 000	$500	500	$500	500	$400	400
Total	$4 000	5 800	$1 500	2 000	$1 700	2 400	$1 700	2 700
Average points/$		1.45		1.33		1.41		1.59

The three-tiered earning structure means that the average points earned has a decent range of 1.33 – 1.59 points/$, which is worth 2 – 2.39 ¢/$.  That’s a good return for an airline co-branded credit card with a $95 annual fee.  Given that Alaska miles are otherwise harder to come by, this earn rate is not too bad.

Specific examples

Card	Alaska Airlines IAD-SFO (First Class) ($750)  (% return)	Marriott Hotel night ($230/night)	Points values (Alaska/Hotel)
No rewards card	3 630 AM (7.3%)	2 200 MP (7.3%)	$54.45 / $11.00
General 2% cashback card ($0)	3 630 + $15.00 (9.3%)	2 200 MP + $4.60 (9.3%)	$69.45 / $15.60
Chase Sapphire Preferred ($95)	3 630 + 1 500 UR (10.3%)	2 200 MP + 460 UR (10.3%)	$76.95 / $17.90
Amex Green Card ($150)	3 630 + 2 250 MR (11.5%)	2 200 MP + 690 MR (11.5%)	$83.95 / $21.35
Alaska Airlines Card ($95)	5 880 AM (11.8%)	2 200 MP + 230 AM (8.7%)	$88.20 / $14.45

Is this credit card right for you?

I think this card is perfectly fine if you travel with Alaska a lot and can make use of the perks.  If your flight patterns are like mine, where you mostly fly alone, then the Companion Fare isn’t going to bring you any value.  Since the card really plays up the Companion Fare as a perk (and part of the welcome offer), that means this card just wouldn’t work for me.  If you travel in a pair at least once a year, then it might be worth it for you. Similarly, if you already pay for an Alaska Airlines Lounge+ membership, then this card might also be of interest.