The Offer
Many people are getting the following email offer for their Alaska Airlines Visa Signature card:
- Spend $250 on the credit card and get a $75 discount voucher toward a future Alaska flight.
Subject line is “Your Alaska Airlines Visa Signature(R) credit card”.
The Fine Print
- The $75 discount code will be valid for one year
- Must activate email first
- Must spend the $250 by 6/30/17
- Allow up to 12 weeks from June 30 for the discount code to be issued
Our Verdict
It might be that the offer is being sent out only to those who opened an Alaska credit card within the past year or so. In any case, if you got the offer, it’s really an excellent one. For just $250 in credit card spend, you can get $75 off a $75+ flight. Not sure if it’ll work for flights that cost less than $75.
Hat tip to r/churning and @miles4matt
It said retail purchase, does Alaska ticket count?
Oh, and to further support your theory, my annual fee is coming up in the next 2 or 3 months, so you might be right. However, unless they give me a real retention offer, I’m going to cancel and then sign up again later on if/when I need to take another Alaska flight. I tried calling once in hopes of getting the 2500 point retention offer that people have been speaking about, but the rep said that nothing was available, most likely because it was too far away from my renewal date, and advised me to call back within 30 days of my renewal date.
Oops, this was intended to be a reply to the above comment.
I suspect it is a reward for folks who have their annual fee coming up in the next few months to entice people to keep the card. The fine print warns that a 1099 may be issued the offsets some of the value of the reward. It makes me wonder how likely the 1099 being issued is. I have seen this warning about a possible 1099 on all alaska rewards from B of A but have never been issued one.
Also wondering is that changes if you use your points on an otherwise expensive redemption, I know DoC has made a few comments on this in the past on points that the 1099 is not likely to occur, any DP on the $75 credit? TIA
JP
I received a similar offer last year and earned a $50 discount code, and did NOT receive a 1099 for 2016.
I am also sorely disappointed that I could not use my discount code in conjunction with my companion certificate, since that is essentially a discount code as well. I regret participating in the promotion last year because now my $50 is likely to go unused (and unfortunately it can’t be transferred, nor can it be added to your wallet funds).
I opened two Alaska credit cards the last year and I didn’t get the email
I have an Alaska $99 companion certificate for sale. Are we allowed to sell them?
The fare either needs to include you, OR be purchased with your Alaska CC.
In theory it’s a good deal when judged solely by the low spend requirement and the $75 reward amount, but in practicality I’ve found these discounts to be of limited use since they cannot be combined with other discounts or used with companion codes.
For people that fly Alaska a lot (more than twice a year) and/or who never fly with companions, this would be an excellent offer.
However, for anyone that flies with Alaska twice a year (or less) and usually with a companion, then they’d simply be better off churning the BOA Alaska personal/business cards and booking their flights with points, and/or using the annual companion certificates from each of those two cards. Since the companion certificates cannot be combined with any other discounts, this offer is probably of very limited use to the vast majority of people.