There are a lot of rewards for using Alaska Airlines for traveling. One popular perk is the Alaska Airlines Companion Fare. Alaskan Airlines has a credit card called the Alaska Airlines Visa Signature Card to help earn reward points. The Alaskan Airlines Visa includes a companion fare, which allows you to bring a guest with you on your flight for a little over $100.
Traveling With The Alaskan Companion Fare
What is Companion Fare?
Bank of America offers the Alaskan Airlines Visa Signature Card. This credit card has a number of perks and benefits associated with its membership. Benefits like a free checked bag, no foreign transaction fees, and earn 3 points for every dollar spent on Alaskan Airlines purchases. The annual fee is $75 and features a benefit called the Alaskan Airlines Companion Fare.
The Companion Fare works like this, you purchase a ticket at the normal rate and you get another ticket for a companion for just cost of taxes and fees. Generally, the companions’ ticket ends up costing somewhere starting around $22. After that first year, it will cost $99 to bring your companion plus taxes and fees. If you use this benefit on longer trips you will end up saving hundreds of dollars in the long run. Plus you will be earning double points because your companion’s ticket will count towards your miles accrued.
Essentially the Alaskan Companion Fare is a code that you enter when booking a flight. To find it you will need to log into your Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan account. Once logged in you will find the code under discounts and companion fare codes. Follow the prompts and when you choose to shop for tickets, your code is auto-populated into the correct form fields. It’s a pretty straight forward process.
Getting Your Companion Fare
The first step towards enjoying great benefits along with the companion fare is getting yourself a travel credit card. There are a lot of different cards to choose from when looking for a good travel credit card. If choosing one of the more popular ones with good flexibility is what you’re looking for, then the Alaskan Airlines Visa Signature is a great option.
Alaskan Airlines Visa Signature Card
The Alaskan Airlines Visa Signature Card comes with some great benefits that really help your travel dollars go even farther. When applying for the card if approved you’ll get a special introductory offer. If within the first 3 months of opening your account you spend $1,000, you will receive 30,000 bonus miles. You’ll also receive Alaska’s famous Companion Fare.
Some other benefits of the Signature card are that any dollar you spend on Alaska Airlines purchases, you earn 3 miles. For all other qualifying purchases, you earn 1 mile for every dollar spent. The good thing about the miles is that there is no cap and they never expire as long as the account is open.
You can also enjoy the fact that when you fly you get a free checked bag. You also won’t have to worry about having any foreign transaction fees, because there are none. With such a low annual fee of $75 the card practically pays for itself with its benefits and companion fare.
Ways To Earn Your Miles
There are a number of ways that you can earn more miles. The fact is, that the more miles you have the higher your status will be. You gain elite status when you earn 20,000 miles. That means if you do earn the bonus 30,000 miles you are already an elite member. Having elite status means that you are eligible for upgrades and other complementary services.
Some of the ways you can earn even more points are by using hotels that have partnered up with Alaskan Airlines, like Best Western and La Quinta for example. To see some of the other hotels that you can earn miles with just check here.
You can also earn miles from partnered car rental agencies. Your membership provides access to agencies like Avis and Budget, as well as a whole lot more listed here. Earn 50 miles per day of car renting.
Miles can be earned by doing your everyday shopping locally or online at over 850+ stores like Macy’s, Groupon, Walmart, and more with the card’s Mileage Plan Shopping benefit. Plus, you can earn extra bonus miles during special shopping events.
Getting your introductory bonus of 30,000 miles by spending $1,000 in the first 90 days shouldn’t be too difficult. Between travel, gas, groceries, and the occasional shopping splurge, $1,000 can get spent rather quickly.
Using Your Companion Fare
Now that you have your own Alaskan Airlines Visa Signature Card, you will come to see just how flexible the Companion Fare benefit really is. Especially when it comes to booking the different types of tickets. One-way, round trip, open jaw, and multi-city are all acceptable tickets that can be booked with Companion Fare. The exceptions are if the ticket involves code shares or partner flights. There are also a few more rules that go along with the benefit.
Book Premium Economy
When using the Alaskan Airlines Companion Fare you are better off booking the premium economy. Alaska Airlines has done away with the ability to use companion fare with first class tickets. By booking premium economy when upgrades to seating become available you will be higher on the list of people who can be upgraded easily. You also get complimentary alcohol as well as more legroom.
You Aren’t Needed To Use Companion Fare
When it comes to using the companion fare you actually don’t need to be one of the travelers. All that is required by you is that you book and pay using your credit card in order to allow, for example, your two children to fly and visit their Aunt. This type of flexibility allows you to earn miles without having to fly yourself.
Change Your Ticket As Much As You Like
With the Alaskan Airlines Companion Fare, you can alter and change your reservation to different times and cities as often as you like. You are free to upgrade to a higher fare class, but keep in mind that both the primary and the companion have to be upgraded to the same level. The primary and the companion have to be on the same fare class. Also, keep in mind that if you cancel your ticket you also cancel your companion fare. Companion fare can only be used in conjunction with a regular purchased ticket. So if there’s no ticket, then there’s no companion fare.
More Things To Know About Companion Fare
There are a few more things to be aware of when dealing with the Alaskan Airlines Companion Fare benefit. It may be exciting to see the miles building up, however, this is just a credit card, so remember to spend responsibly. A lot of financial damage can be done in a very short time if you aren’t careful. Also, before committing to any airline travel credit card, make sure the airline flies to destinations that you want or need to go to. It won’t do you any good to have miles that you can’t use because none of the destinations are places that you want to visit.
When using the Alaskan Airlines Companion Fare, because it’s a code that gets entered, that means and it cannot be combined with other discounts that are given as codes.
So while you may get 30,000 miles and the companion fare you cannot use them both at the same time. However, there are other ways to maximizing your companion fare value. With the use of stopovers, you can book several one-way segments to create a once in a lifetime trip.
Remember your Alaskan Airlines Signature Card has mile earning power. Whenever you need a rental car or have to go out of town and need to book a hotel room, make sure to check your card benefits to see which places will give you the most points. Plus any online shopping that you need to do, check the shopping portal first. You will likely find the store you were looking for online and can make your purchase there all while earning more miles with your purchases.
The Bottom line
The Alaskan Airlines Visa Signature Card is an excellent travel credit card that offers huge savings and great rewards. After qualifying for the bonus 30,000 miles you also receive the Companion Fare, which is good for an extra ticket for the cost of taxes and fees on your first year. The Card has multiple ways to help you earn more miles by doing the things that you would already normally be doing.
The Companion Fare is just the icing on the cake when looking at all the perks that come with the Alaskan Airlines Visa Signature Card. With the ability to add stopovers and book one-way or round-trip tickets, the Alaskan Airlines Companion Fare offers unparalleled flexibility. And with no miles cap and miles that don’t expire, you can really feel good knowing that it’s not hard at all to get your money’s worth or to save money with this travel credit card.
