(EXPIRED) Earn 5K Alaska miles per referral [Targeted?]

I received an email today from Alaska Mileage Plan with the subject line: Earn 5,000 bonus miles by referring a friend. The email contained a link to refer friends to the Alaska Airlines Visa Sigature card and earn 5,000 miles per approval. I wouldn’t recommend sharing referrals with strangers (more on why below), but it could be a good way to boost your balance if you have friends and family interested in the card. That said, this offer essentially trades away the $100 statement credit included with our current Best Offer, so whether or not that trade is worthwhile will likely come down to how you and your friend value your Mileage Plan balance.

The Offer

• Refer friends/family to open an Alaska Airlines Visa Signature card, receive 5,000 bonus miles for each approval
• The person you refer gets a standard signup bonus offer of 30,000 miles after spending $1,000 in the first 3 months, plus the $0 Companion Fare (plus taxes & fees) for the first year ($99 + taxes/fees thereafter). Note that this offer is missing the $100 statement credit from our current Best Offers page.
• Direct link to the referral offer page (note that you must have an open Alaska Airlines credit card account to receive the bonus)

Key Details

• Offer expires January 15, 2018
• Remember that if the applicant doesn’t qualify for the Visa Signature, they may be approved for the Platinum Plus card, which does not carry the same signup bonus and benefits
• From the terms: A Prospect may be ineligible if he or she has responded to a previous offer for a Bank of America^® credit card within the last 45 days or if he or she has been approved for a previous offer of a Bank of America credit card. 
• From the terms: The referral mileage bonus will be credited only if a Prospect is approved for a new Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa^® credit card under this program within 60 days of the date we send your e-mail message to the Prospect. We will credit the referral bonus within 60 days following the date of approval. Bonus miles will be credited directly to your Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan account.

Quick Thoughts

As noted above, this offer does not include the $100 statement credit for the new account holder that they could otherwise get with the current Best Offer on this card. That said, if you have a use in mind where you’ll get better than 2 cents per point in value from your Alaska miles, it might make sense to refer someone like a spouse or traveling companion.

However, I would not recommend referring strangers. When you click the link in the email and go to the splash page, you must input both your Alaska Mileage Plan information (name, mileage plan number, email, and zip code) and your friend’s first & last name and email address. It looks like the links sent out are unique — but they also include your first & last name and Alaska Mileage Plan Number in the URL. I wouldn’t be too excited about handing over my Mileage Plan account information to someone I didn’t know/trust.

Also noteworthy: it says that if someone is referred multiple times, they will credit the 5,000 miles to the first person to refer that email address. I thought that was odd — rather than tracking the referral by the link in the email, they appear to be tracking it by who first referred the applicant’s email address. So if you have a friend or family member sign up, make sure they use the email address you provided.

Many people will value the $100 statement credit more highly than the 5,000 Alaska miles, but if you’re saving up for a premium cabin international redemption (or even if you’re going to use it on a short-haul one-way), you may prefer the miles. Do not leave referral links in the comments here — they will be blocked by our spam filter and as noted above it’s not worth putting your account security at risk by sharing your name and Mileage Plan number publicly.

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