Pretty much every month, airline shopping portals run by Cartera launch a promotion offering bonus miles. Sometimes that’s 1,000 bonus miles when installing their browser button and using it to spend $25, while other times it’ll be a spending offer like ‘Spend $1,000 & earn 4,000 bonus miles.’
With some airline portals, those additional bonus miles aren’t elite qualifying, but there’s good news on the Mileage Plan front – bonus miles earned from promotions through the Alaska Airlines shopping portal do earn EQMs.
With the American Airlines shopping portal, let’s say you make a $500 purchase at a retailer offering 4x miles and that there’s simultaneously a promotion offering 1,000 bonus miles when spending $500. You’d earn a total of 3,000 AAdvantage miles ($500 * 4 + 1,000), but you’d only earn 2,000 Loyalty Points as the 1,000 bonus miles aren’t Loyalty Point-eligible.
The Alaska Airlines portal on the other hand is more generous. In an identical scenario, you’d earn 3,000 Mileage Plan miles, but you’d also earn 1,000 Elite Qualifying Miles (EQMs). That’s because for every 3,000 miles earned through Alaska spending partners (such as the portal), you earn 1,000 EQMs.
When Alaska Airlines revamped its loyalty program at the start of this year, there had been the expectation that bonus miles earned during portal promotions wouldn’t be elite qualifying based on how it works with American Airlines and Southwest. However, after reaching out to Alaska Airlines, they’ve confirmed that those bonus miles will count towards EQMs earnings.
For the last few years, it’s been possible to earn 6,000-8,000 bonus miles each year from the Alaska shopping portal when they run these limited time spending promotions (excluding the browser button offers). If that continues this year and in future years, that’s an additional 2,000 EQMs up for grabs each year towards status.
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