Alaska Adds Routes to ABQ and BWI with Double Miles

Because these double miles promotions make it so much easier to earn elite status with Alaska Airlines, I want to alert you to two new routes being added from Seattle. New service on nonstop flights to Baltimore and Albuquerque will begin in September later this year. To celebrate, Alaska is selling discounted fares when booked by April 3 as well as double miles when you register and fly by October 31. (Check out several other Alaska Airlines double miles promos on new and existing routes.)

Update: This promo does not earn double elite qualifying miles as I originally said. Oleg provided a link in the comments to a message from Alaska Airlines. Apparently the word “not” was left out by mistake, and was not updated until sometime later this morning after I wrote my post (or perhaps I still had the old version loaded and did not refresh the page). Alaska has said they will work with guests to refund affected reservations and return any upgrades already redeemed.

September seems a long way off. However, don’t forget that Alaska Airlines allows all its customers to cancel tickets for a full credit toward a future flight when done at least 60 days before departure. If you already have MVP Gold or MVP Gold 75K elite status, then you can cancel up to the day of departure. You can book a discounted fare now and goose your way toward elite status with Alaska’s Mileage Plan and not actually have to commit until sometime in June.

Double miles, particularly on a transcon route like SEA-BWI, can be particularly valuable. One round-trip flight would earn about 9,340 elite qualifying miles. Update: The T&Cs on Alaska’s web page have changed since an error was noticed after the original release. Sorry for any confusion.

You need only 40,000 elite qualifying miles to earn MVP Gold status when you fly exclusively on Alaska Airlines, or 50,000 when you include credit from partner airlines. Considering the low hurdle and the relatively generous cancellation policy already mentioned, it’s one of the more rewarding elite status tiers among U.S. carriers.