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Update 11/7/20: As was reported by several members of our Frequent Miler Insiders Facebook group yesterday, through November 13th Alaska is once again offering the chance to convert wallet funds to miles at a value of $0.01 per mile. This is again a great deal.
Update: Miles to Memories confirmed with Alaska Airlines that anyone with a wallet balance of $50 or more will receive this offer.
Frequent Flyer Bonuses reports that some Alaska Mileage Plan members have been targeted via email with an offer to convert Alaska Airlines wallet funds (flight credit) to miles. The conversion rate is terrific at $0.01 per mile! That’s a great deal for those targeted. I would jump on that offer in a heartbeat if I had Alaska wallet funds and was targeted. Note that Alaska has published a press release about this promotion, so it is possible that everyone with a wallet balance will be targeted (though you can’t game this as newly-created wallet funds will not be eligible).
The Deal
- Targeted Alaska Mileage Plan members have received an email offer to convert Alaska Wallet funds (airline credit) to Mileage Plan miles at a rate of $0.01 per mile in increments of 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100% of their wallet balance through November 13 at 11:59pm PT.
Key Terms
- Offer valid through November 13, 2020 11:59 pm (PT).
- Qualifying members who receive this offer directly from Alaska Airlines via email can exchange Alaska wallet funds in increments of 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100% of their current wallet balance for Mileage Plan bonus miles at an exchange rate of 100 miles per $1.
- Bonus miles are redeemable for award travel, but do not count toward elite status qualification.
- All wallet exchanges for miles are final, and wallet credit once redeemed is not refundable.
- If wallet balance at the time of debit is below what is needed to cover the exchange, the exchange will be canceled.
- Offer cannot be combined with any other offer.
- All Mileage Plan terms and conditions apply.
- Mileage Plan miles do not expire, but if a Mileage Plan account is inactive for 2 years, Alaska Airlines may close the account; miles in a closed account can be reinstated for a fee for up to 1 year after closure.
- Exchanging wallet credit for Mileage Plan miles pursuant to this offer does qualify as account activity, so your Mileage Plan account will remain active for at least 2 years after the effective date of the exchange.
Quick Thoughts
As Frequent Flyer Bonuses points out, someone with $500 in Alaska wallet funds who is targeted for this could convert those funds to 50,000 Alaska Mileage Plan miles with this offer. That’s enough miles for a one-way business class ticket to/from Asia on Cathay Pacific — or almost enough for a one-way business class ticket to Australia on Qantas or Fiji Airways (which requires 55K miles). And remember that Alaska Airlines allows a stopover on a one-way award ticket. Either of those types of redemptions would obviously be far more valuable than $500 in airline credit.
Obviously we don’t know when international travel will return to a state resembling normal, so perhaps some focused primarily on domestic travel will prefer keeping the wallet funds, but personally I’d gamble on taking the miles. With Alaska joining oneworld, there is some chance (and perhaps likelihood) of award chart changes in the coming months, but I’d expect to have an opportunity to use these miles before changes are made.
Keep in mind that this offer only runs through November 13th, so jump on it before it is too late if you’re interested.
Once again this time the terms specifically address those tempted to game the system: it says that members who newly receive wallet credit during the promo period will have any attempt at conversion to miles canceled. It looks like you won’t be able to buy a gift certificate or a ticket and cancel to take advantage of this. If we knew for sure that they would run this again in the future, it would make those discounted Alaska gift cards at Costco all the more attractive. Unfortunately, we don’t know that they’ll run this again.
Overall, this is a fantastic deal for those who can take advantage.
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I have an alaska gift certificate from a flight canceled in mid October. If I convert that into wallet funds would it work given the T&Cs?
I have about $1200 (120,000 miles equivalent) spread out among 8 different certs that I acquired from 3 different canceled trips this spring/summer. The tickets were purchased/canceled back in March. I have always requested certificates instead of “my wallet” so I can use those certificates for all 4 members of my family depending upon who is buying a ticket (2 of the 4 of us are AS CC holders and have companion fares, so I found it easier to use the certificates).
Would my situation qualify? I assume it would be ok, since T&C read, “This offer is not intended to apply to new purchases of gift certificates occurring during the offer period. If you acquire a gift certificate during the offer period, or receive a gift certificate acquired during the offer period, and exchange that gift certificate for Miles in violation of this condition of the offer, we will reverse the transaction, remove the Miles from your account, and re-issue the amount exchanged as wallet credit”
However, I acquired these gift certificates months ago, but I would be depositing them now during the eligible period. As a test, I deposited one certificate (had one for $.40 – don’t ask why), and it did deposit and is eligible to transfer as 40 miles.
Also can I deposit my certificates in various family members accounts to top them off? The certificates came from 2 of us who purchased the tix, although all 4 of us were travelers. I’d like to deposit those certs in the accounts of the 2 members who don’t have the CC since their mileage balances are low. Just don’t want it end up being reversed and deposited as my wallet funds in those 2 accounts, since then I wouldn’t even be able to use it with the companion fares since those companion fare codes would reside the other 2 peoples account (those that hold the AS CC).
Hope that makes sense!
I have over $1000 in travel credit issued as codes ( not my wallet). Can I deposit those in my wallet and then convert to miles?
I’m really tempted to go for the Costco GC deal, load my wallet, and hope I get targeted for this.
Just curious…did you do this or not? I was contemplating the same thing but wondered if there were any data points confirming that this would work. Thanks.
[…] Click here to view the original article. […]
[…] Great deal: Convert Alaska wallet funds to miles at 1c per mile (Expires 10/12/20) […]
[…] that you should drop what you’re doing right now and convert that credit to miles — see this post for more on that and get it done by 10/12. I’d love to see that type of offer from other airlines (I’m […]
I didn’t get the E-mail but once you log into your account and scroll down, there’s a square banner that takes you to the conversion page. You literally pick an amount you want to convert, press a button and it’s done. Points were credited immediately.
From what I can tell, it can’t/doesn’t let you differentiate between funds in your wallet. I have a couple hundred dollars from previously cancelled trips and cancelled another trip within 24 hours of this promo and the only option was converting a % of the full amount – there was no option to distinguish “eligible funds to be converted” and “uneligible funds.”
Not sure how they would track everything short of manually looking at each transaction. That being said, they probably have a system in place that doesn’t allow you to book and cancel right away to “buy” points at 1cent/mile.
Thank you for the tip with square banner conversion page when login to your account!
Just converted my $477 wallet credit to 47.700 miles. Great find/deal and very useful article as well.
Wonderful deal for those with funds and offer- AS miles are some of the most valuable IMHO.
We used 140K AS miles to fly F from JNB to PDX (23 hours of flight in F) and IIRC $600 in taxes, but enjoyed 5 hours at Concorde Room, we reserved a Cabana with private shower to freshen up before TATL flight, DW got free CR spa treatment (booked DW my time slot). Got photos of us sitting in the A380 flight deck seats.
We had about $900 in wallet funds from COVID cancel – we booked 4 RT PDX-ANC for approx $224pp.
We truly enjoyed a wonderful week in Alaska last month, while 90K AS miles would be sweet, I wouldn’t trade it for the memories we have of that trip.
But the $1K of SW travel funds converted to RR points from new Plats added last May, it might have been a huge win funneling them credits into AS wallet funds -> AS miles, instead of LUV RR with this promo in play.
[…] One Mile at a Time says he’s confused over whether the promotion is targeted. Nick Reyes at Frequent Miler even puts the question of whether the offer is limited to certain members in the headline of his coverage. […]
[…] One Mile at a Time says he’s confused over whether the promotion is targeted. Nick Reyes at Frequent Miler even puts the question of whether the offer is limited to certain members in the headline of his coverage. […]
[…] [Targeted?] Great deal: Convert Alaska wallet funds to miles at 1c per mile […]
Miles to Memories is saying they got confirmation from Alaska that anyone with credit on the account will get the offer.
Fear of devaluation aside, that’s pretty generous. Even with devaluation, they’d have to make their point worth less than 1 cent for this not to make sense.
I’ve got a little more than $900 in wallet funds and more than 300k miles in my account currently.
A devaluation could wipe all this out and it’s difficult to travel internationally at the moment.
I haven’t received the offer so it may be a mute point for me.
By all the measures of how much points are worth by RRV or by purchase priced this is a ‘great deal’. We have had excellent redemptions (family of 5 in J to Europe x 2 on AF, another on AA with stopover); However I share some of the same concerns – best use generally is on international travel (when will that happen – GSTP has been detailing all of the failed ‘open travel’ policies that have been attempted); can be valuable on domestic travel usually only when using the stopover (but already have cancelled 3 like trips this year); and then when finally able to use the miles….the devaluation. There is also the small (tiny?) matter of opportunity cost – the earning of miles/status when spending those wallet funds on flights. @NickReyes, knowing all this would you really be all in?
Honestly, I think that if you’re taking more time to think about this than however long it takes to click the button that says “HECK YES I WANT TO CONVERT TO MILES” then you’re overthinking it. This is a no-brainer. Why would I want to be stuck with credit that can only be used on Alaska airlines and can’t get any outsized value since it is worth at maximum the face value (and then only if Alaska is the cheapest / most desirable option for my travel needs) when I could trade it for miles that will likely enable me to fly around the world in luxury?
Sure, there is a chance that miles will devalue. I’d put the chances of them becoming worth less than one cent each toward international premium cabin travel at near-zero. Their award prices would have to more than double across the board for me to even approach feeling bad about this conversion. And even then, it’s not like you’re using cash to buy the miles — you’re using Alaska funny money dollars that were tied to only flying on Alaska and you’re freeing them up by putting them in a currency that can easily be used on any oneworld partner in the future.
I know that we don’t know when travel will become advisable / normal / comfortable, but unless this thing turns into the pandemic that wiped out humanity, I think we’ll eventually get some sort of “normal” life back. I highly doubt that I’ll never travel internationally again — I’ll be happy to have the miles when that time comes. Maybe it’ll be a year or two or three — but I still probably won’t feel bad about having miles when that time comes.
I’m not too excited about paying for flights with wallet funds anyway — I want trip delay protection from a credit card. Give me miles so I can use my CC on the taxes at least. Hands down I would do this.
Nick – you present a great argument. Thanks for the slap upside the head
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0GW0Vnr9Yc
I get your point but I travel a lot for business and San Diego is a focus city for Alaska which means in normal times lots of non stop flights to places I want to go. I have a couple of flights booked this year that will get me to MVP Gold.
I have a few flights already booked for next year plus what I will book with my $900 wallet funds (two companion certs to Hawaii for work/play). That will likely qualify me for Gold again. 100% mileage bonus. So 40,000 in flying gets me 80,000 miles plus the extra perks vs. 90,000 miles for my wallet funds.
If you’re non-elite I would do this for sure. But, if you’re MVP Gold or higher and have planned Alaska flights, I’d keep the money.
I am kind of in the same spot with 350K miles and $450 in the wallet. I think I’ll turn down conversion as well since AS has been pretty flexible with cancellations and now, no change fees. Besides, it’s not like AS sometimes does not charge outrageous amount of miles for certain routes while cash price still remains reasonable.