Alaska Airlines has introduced a new version of their signup bonus. They still offer 30,000 miles after $1,000 spend, but now they’ll also waive the $99 companion charge when using your companion ticket within the first year of card membership. In other words, rather than paying $99 plus taxes and fees for your companion, you’ll pay just the taxes and fees.
We found that you can do even better via a dummy booking.
Go to alaskaair.com, and go through all of the steps to book a flight. When you get to the final payment screen, you should see an offer that includes 30,000 miles, a waived $99 companion ticket, and a $100 statement credit. You can sign up through that link without purchasing the ticket.
After clicking the “Apply Now” button, you’ll be taken to a page that shows the full details of the companion fare offer:
Note that they’ll waive the $99 companion fare only in the first year. For each subsequent year of card membership, you’ll have to pay $99 plus taxes and fees for your companion.
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thanks! incognito without logging into account worked. 🙂
any advice for what to do with all my virgin america miles in the transition? (have gold status currently though not enough mileage this year to renew for next year)
this does not seem to work anymore… the payment page does not list a credit card signup option though other parts of the alaska site does
Hmm, thanks for reporting this. I just tried it and it still worked for me. Here’s what I did:
1. Open Chrome with an Incognito window
2. Search for one-way flight. Made sure to select an Alaska flight (as opposed to a partner)
3. I did not log in. I put in my info and clicked through all the steps until the “Checkout: Review and complete payment” page. On that page I found the offer with the $100 credit.
Confirmed that this is still working, though I didn’t need incognito. Reminder for everyone to unfreeze your credit files before applying – a quick call to see which bureau they pulled, then another call to request “reactivation” of the request did the trick. Thanks!
I have read several posts on this topic over the past several weeks. I had been thinking about applying to help out with travel in early 2018. I had read that one could open 2 different windows and apply for 2 cards at the same time. I started with the dummy booking as described above and was taken to the offer described 30k/0$ companion/$100 credit.
I was immediately approved on one application but denied on the other. I called the reconsideration line right away and the CSR adjusted the spend on the first card and then approved for the second card.
When I received the cards in the mail neither card noted the $100 credit. I will be interested in seeing if the credit is actually applied in the next few weeks.
Presumably I should only have 1 credit pull for these two cards. I will be watching that also.
Cool. I expect you’ll get the $100 credits, but will be interested to hear if not.
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Does this work if you already have an Alaska card open?
Theoretically, yes — but see the comments above. Many reports indicate that BoA has tightened up on the number of cards you can have as well as in closing accounts after approval if you’ve been on a big spree. But if your question is, “Can you have two Alaska cards open”, the answer is yes.
I assume, if I had applied for the card before this offer, the $99 companion pass fee is not waived, correct?
Correct. That offer is only for new applicants (and only a “limited time” offer). My (old) Alaska card still has the $99 companion certificate (even though mine renewed since this offer came out).
Literally just applied for the regular offer an hour before this was posted. FT has been recently been reporting BofA cracking down on AS churning though so proceed with caution. Other than that, this is an excellent offer.
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does the bank match offers easily? I had applied with the offer without 100 credit but would like to get it
I don’t recall reports of people matching the offer successfully, but I do know that they definitely won’t match it if you don’t ask :-). In other words — it never hurts to try.
Be careful with BOA denying apps a few days after them being approved if you have hit it hard lately.
Does this work for personal card only or business card as well? I need to be under 5/24
I would like to know if this counts for 5/24 as well
The personal card certainly counts against 5/24. I’m not aware of a $100 statement credit offer on the business version (which hasn’t counted against 5/24).