Bank of America is offering a 40,000 mile signup bonus on the Alaska Airlines Visa: 25,000 miles on approval and then 15,000 more after $7500 in spend within 6 months of account open. $75 annual fee not waived the first year.
I’ve only seen a 40,000 mile signup bonus on this card once before (albeit that was with no spend requirement). The standard bonus is 25,000 miles on account opening.
Alaska partners with several members of Skyteam and of oneworld, and has a new partnership with Emirates and Icelandair. Their award chart is generally reasonable and fuel surcharges apply only on British Airways awards. The only real drawbacks are that there are no one-way awards on partners, that you cannot mix and match different partners on a single award either so you have to fly the same partner (with connections on Alaska flights permitted) in both directions.
This card also comes with a $99+tax companion ticket which is valid for use on any paid coach fare. Sadly the companion tickets are no longer useful on paid first class fares.
Bank of America cards are generally churnable, I’ve had more than one Alaska card in the past.
The best card offers are usually from Chase, American Express, and Citibank. Good offers from other issuers — like Bank of America, Barclays, etc. — are really useful when planning a credit card churn.
No referral credit for me on this one, and would certainly have cracked yesterday’s top 10 credit card signup bonus list.
(HT: Online Travel Review)
To churn, do you have to cancel the current card or just apply with one card already open? Thanks
Are these Alaska miles usable for delta flights?
Between the ridiculous spend requirement and the fee not waived for the 1st year this card is mediocre at best. Especially now that the companion ticket has been devalued
Same question as Maury. I’d consider getting another to keep business and personal expenses separate. I guess in that case, I would keep my existing card open at this time.
The $99 is also now $110 on the companion fare.
@rob they are if you can find availability on delta…!
@Miriam it was always $99+tax now they have to estimate that per federal gov’t rules
pass…
A $75 roundtrip to Alaska is pretty nice deal!
They have also added to the T&C that it is for new card holder only so the old churnability looks like it is getting switched off.
You know if the promo is same for Business card? Link/
25,000 miles for $75 is a good deal, forget about meeting the minimum spend for the extra 15,000 miles. I wonder where I should fly to…
Airline partners include: Alaska Airlines, Air France, Air Pacific, American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Delta Air Lines, Emirates, Era Alaska, Icelandair, Kenmore Air, KLM, Korean Air, LAN, PenAir, and Qantas. (http://www.alaskaair.com/content/mileage-plan/partners/partner-overview.aspx).
@Big D, here is a link to the Biz CC: http://business.bankofamerica.com/creditcard/CardProductPage?sc=UABOT7&category=400
“Earn 20,000 Bonus Mileage Plan Miles after your first purchase” same $75 fee tho
Nice bump in the bonus; I’m thinking they’ve probably had a wave of cancellations since they made the change to the companion ticket. But the $7500 spend requirement makes it a no-go for me at this point in any case.
What are the time intervals for churning this card? Quarterly? Once a year??
I’m wondering at what point do you give up the extra spend? They are only offering 2:1 for the extra $7,500 in spend. I guess it works out to an extra 2 miles per dollar in addition to the base miles you would get for that spend, but that really isn’t all that much in the grand scheme, is it?
The 25k base offer just doesn’t seem all the exciting to me. Clearly YMMV, and those that can use the miles on Alaska or their partners might find it more compelling than I do.
-David
I say DON’T take this one. Don’t support their offers of high spend, especially with such a low bonus. All that does is perpetuate the trend of higher spend for weaker bonuses.
Any idea when this offer expires? I can’t commit to the extra spend at the moment, as I’ve already taken on some 10K over the next 4 months… 😛 But I’d snag this one so I could churn it a couple of times and redeem for something fun. Been waiting for something over 25K for a while.
@artcicbull since it’s not an openly promoted offer it’s not clear when it’ll be pulled
re the questions on churning: my personal experience along with others on the forums is churn 90+ days, prev can still be open; you get signup bonus miles but not a 2nd comp cert if one is already in your acct (even if forgot to put your AS# on app)
@greek2me, thank you for the info, I would churn it solely for the miles, but may use the companion pass the first time 🙂
FYI I received a snail mail postcard advertising this offer, and the listed expiry date is Oct 31, 2012.
Got the same postcard in the mail. Gonna wait till mid October to apply, just so some of my inquires fall off.