S3E6: Alaska and Hawaiian Miles for Domestic Award Flights

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<v Speaker 1>Today we're covering some ins and outs of booking Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian flights with the Alaska and Hawaiian loyalty programs.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm also going to discuss some short-term loopholes that we have with the upcoming merger, as well as a mistake I recently made with my own Alaska miles.

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome back to Points for Normal People.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm Katie and I'm here because I know that travel costs add up, especially for a family, but I believe travel isn't just for the rich.

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<v Speaker 1>That's why, on Points for Normal People, I share the tips and tricks that my family has been using for over a decade to help you use your everyday expenses and credit card welcome offers to supercharge your travel points so that you can pay for entire vacations every year.

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<v Speaker 1>Today we're discussing Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines flights and, to be honest, I've never flown Alaska and have only flown Hawaiian Airlines once on a little island hopper.

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<v Speaker 1>But if you're based on the West Coast, specifically the Pacific Northwest, alaska is one of the best programs to really familiarize yourself with, since it will give you the most flight options.

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<v Speaker 1>It's also great to learn about these programs if you want to travel to the Pacific Northwest or to Alaska or to Hawaii.

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<v Speaker 1>There's even some flights to Mexico and beyond.

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<v Speaker 1>So, again, this is all theoretical knowledge for me.

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<v Speaker 1>If you're listening and I miss something, send me an email and let me know.

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<v Speaker 1>I always like to end the season with a full episode of tips that I learn from listeners throughout the season.

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<v Speaker 1>We'll start by talking about using Alaska and Hawaiian miles for booking Alaska and Hawaiian flights, and then next week we're going to move on to other kind of miles that you could use to book Alaska and Hawaiian flights.

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<v Speaker 1>In April 2025, when I'm filming this, alaska and Hawaiian are in the process of merging Now.

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<v Speaker 1>They've already merged their loyalty programs to the extent that you can transfer Alaska miles to Hawaiian and Hawaiian miles to your Alaska account.

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<v Speaker 1>They currently have different award charts, which we will discuss, but we expect that to change this year and to become more unified.

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<v Speaker 1>Let's talk first about how to earn these miles and then we'll talk about how to use them for domestic flights.

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<v Speaker 1>The main way you can earn Alaska miles is by opening the Alaska credit cards, which are issued by Bank of America.

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<v Speaker 1>There are two cards that you can get a business version and a personal version.

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<v Speaker 1>If you're going to apply for these cards, I recommend looking for, or waiting for, an offer of at least 70,000 miles.

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<v Speaker 1>Those come by pretty frequently.

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<v Speaker 1>If the offers are at 70,000 miles or above, you'll usually find them on the best offers page of my website.

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<v Speaker 1>These cards don't have affiliate links, but I try to keep them on that page if they are at that 70,000 point or above marker.

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<v Speaker 1>Now, bank of America can be a little sensitive and if you've opened more than two cards in the past 12 months it can be harder to get approved for these cards.

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<v Speaker 1>But a really popular workaround is just to open a checking account with them, because if you open a checking account with Bank of America, it's a whole lot easier to get approved for these cards.

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<v Speaker 1>The business one in particular is a great option for when you have some extra spending but you're trying to stay under 524 longer, or you could add it into my three-year plan.

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<v Speaker 1>But my biggest issue with these cards is that the interface on the Bank of America website makes it so difficult to set up auto pay.

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<v Speaker 1>Most banks make it really easy to set up auto pay as soon as you get the card, but not Bank of America.

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<v Speaker 1>They make you wait at least a full cycle and even then it takes a few extra steps.

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<v Speaker 1>I actually posted about this on Instagram last year because I was having a heck of a time with this and ended up missing a payment while trying to set this up, and so this was one of my Alaska miles mistakes.

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<v Speaker 1>I just had a really hard time linking my bank account and then we were traveling and I forgot to follow up why it didn't link.

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<v Speaker 1>And then next thing I I saw a late fee in my account.

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<v Speaker 1>But when I posted my experience, I had so many people reply that something similar had happened to them, and people even wondered aloud if Bank of America makes it hard on purpose to set up auto pay in order to be able to earn more via late fees and interest rates.

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<v Speaker 1>Now, I don't know if that's true, but it sure is the hardest to set up a payment, more than any other credit card that I've ever had.

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<v Speaker 1>So just be extra vigilant about setting it up if you ever get one.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm going to go on a tangent about a little perk.

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<v Speaker 1>So getting one of these cards from Bank of America, or any card from Bank of America, comes with a nice little side perk, and that's the Museums on Us program.

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<v Speaker 1>So the first full weekend of every month, there are 225 museums and cultural institutions across the United States that you can enter for free if you have a Bank of America card.

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<v Speaker 1>So in our house, we keep a no annual fee Bank of America business card, and we even added our kids as authorized users, so we can all get into these museums for free.

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<v Speaker 1>Usually, it's one person per card.

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<v Speaker 1>Bank of America, though, has no minimum age for authorized users, which is how we could add our kids.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm telling you, these are really good museums, like.

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<v Speaker 1>In the Chicago area, it includes the Art Institute, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Holocaust Museum and the Morton Ar the Museum of Science and Industry, the Holocaust Museum and the Morton Arboretum all museums that are really great.

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<v Speaker 1>In Denver, where we go a lot to visit family, it includes the Botanic Gardens, the Museum of Science and Nature, which is a great museum, and the Art Museum.

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<v Speaker 1>Some cities include children's museums too.

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<v Speaker 1>It's just such a great little side perk of the Bank of America cards, so just enjoy that perk if you have one of those, but make sure that you're making your payments.

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<v Speaker 1>So those are the card options for Alaska miles.

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<v Speaker 1>It's pretty straightforward.

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<v Speaker 1>For Hawaiian Airlines, the cards are issued by Barclay and these are going to be discontinued sometime in 2025 with the merger.

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<v Speaker 1>These Hawaiian cards are great to get now because they are being discontinued, so you have one last chance to earn the bonus on these before they go away.

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<v Speaker 1>The business card is great, in particular if you want to stay under 524 and still be able to get a card, and the personal card has two versions and some people are able to get approved for both of them.

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<v Speaker 1>So potentially three cards.

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<v Speaker 1>And as of right now, there's a third credit card route where you can easily get more Hawaiian miles, and that is that you can also transfer American Express membership rewards over to Hawaiian Airlines.

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<v Speaker 1>Now we expect this to end at some point with the merger.

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<v Speaker 1>Maybe it won't, but we think it will.

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<v Speaker 1>But if you tuned in last week, you learned the basics of earning American Express membership rewards and as of now, all of those points could be transferred to Hawaiian.

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<v Speaker 1>And then remember, thanks to the merger, you can move any points from Hawaiian over to Alaska's loyalty program.

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<v Speaker 1>So right now, that's a great little loophole because you can take American Express membership rewards points and move those to Hawaiian and then from there you can move them over to Alaska.

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<v Speaker 1>Alaska doesn't have any banks that allow you to transfer points directly to them.

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<v Speaker 1>So it's nice to have this loophole with membership rewards while it lasts.

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<v Speaker 1>So those are the main credit card methods to earn Alaska and Hawaiian miles right now Alaska cards, hawaiian cards and then moving membership rewards to Hawaiian, which then you could move to Alaska, like other loyalty programs.

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<v Speaker 1>There are other little ways to pad your points balance.

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<v Speaker 1>So Alaska has a shopping portal, just like American or Southwest or Rakuten.

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<v Speaker 1>Like other loyalty programs, there are other little ways to pad your points balance.

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<v Speaker 1>So Alaska has a shopping portal, just like American or Southwest or Rakuten.

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<v Speaker 1>So if you really want to focus on Alaska miles and accruing them, you should definitely prioritize using that Alaska shopping portal for your online shopping.

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<v Speaker 1>The Alaska Mileage Plan shopping site also has a way that you can link a credit card to earn bonus miles on certain in-store shopping places, so that's worth linking up and adding offers if you're trying to maximize your earning.

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<v Speaker 1>A lot of the stores are somewhat random, but there are places like CVS on there, so you could be earning extra points, potentially even for in-store shopping.

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<v Speaker 1>And then one more way that you can earn Alaska miles that's unique is through their baggage time guarantee.

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<v Speaker 1>They guarantee that your bag will be at the baggage carousel within 20 minutes of your flight's arrival at the gate, so you can start a clock on your phone the minute your plane parks at the gate.

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<v Speaker 1>And if your bags don't arrive by 20 minutes to the carousel, they will give you 2,500 miles per person who checked a bag.

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<v Speaker 1>You do have to go to the baggage office that day to speak to someone to claim the miles for this, but some people earn a lot of miles this way.

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<v Speaker 1>So credit cards, shopping portals and baggage guarantees I think those are going to be the main ways that you're going to earn these miles.

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<v Speaker 1>So let's talk about now how to spend them.

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<v Speaker 1>As a reminder, this season focuses on domestic redemptions.

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<v Speaker 1>There are some great ways to use Alaska miles for international flights.

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<v Speaker 1>One of the best perks they have is that you can get a free stopover, even on a one-way trip, but that works for international itineraries only.

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<v Speaker 1>There are also some really great sweet spots internationally with great pricing, but today we're talking about domestic flights and also specifically about paying for these using Alaska or Hawaiian miles.

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<v Speaker 1>One big advantage of using Alaska miles is that there are no change or cancellation fees.

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<v Speaker 1>So if you book an award ticket and then you need to change or cancel it.

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<v Speaker 1>You can do so up until the time of departure and you'll get all your miles back with no fee.

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<v Speaker 1>There is a small fee of $12.50 if it was a partner flight, but for Hawaiian and Alaska flights it's nothing, and so overall this is a really great, flexible option.

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<v Speaker 1>Alaska uses a distance based award chart and unfortunately it is somewhat dynamic, so the pricing says starting at, which gives them the freedom to then charge more for higher demand periods.

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<v Speaker 1>But for short-haul flights less than 700 miles they start at just 5,000 miles each way, so that's a great price.

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<v Speaker 1>The next band up for flights within the US is 701 to 1,400 miles and these cost just 7,500 miles.

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<v Speaker 1>The mileage chart caps out at 12,500 miles each way, even for much longer flights like those up to Alaska, and that matches sort of the traditional saver one-way price for flights in North America.

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<v Speaker 1>So within the continental US, up even to Alaska, theoretically the most you could be paying for a roundtrip is 25,000 points if you can find saver pricing.

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<v Speaker 1>The chart says that flights to Hawaii start at 15,000 points each way, but we couldn't find any for that price except from the West Coast, we found mostly 20,000 to 30,000 points each way from the Midwest and the East, so you're looking at more like 40,000 to 60,000 points round trip.

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<v Speaker 1>Hawaiian has its own award chart and that also has a lot of variation.

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<v Speaker 1>But interestingly, when we were researching for our Hawaii flights article this seemed like it was more of a suggestion we found that we could find pricing below their lowest pricing on some routes and then on other routes we could never find pricing at the lowest rate and then most of the time we found that booking Hawaiian flights with Alaska mileage program was actually cheaper.

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<v Speaker 1>So if you're looking to book, you'll definitely want to check both if you're planning to fly Hawaiian and it's easy to check both because you could just search for the same route on both Alaska's website and Hawaiian's website and then look for the cheaper price and book with that website that has the cheaper price If you only have Hawaiian miles but want to book with that website that has the cheaper price, if you only have Hawaiian miles but want to book via Alaska because it has a better price, you could then just move your Hawaiian miles over to your Alaska account.

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<v Speaker 1>As far as searching, alaska's own website has a pretty good, easy to use interface.

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<v Speaker 1>You can search for tickets with miles without ever logging in.

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<v Speaker 1>Once you search a route, you'll be able to see flexible date options across the top, and even in the top right there's an option for seeing a 30-day calendar.

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<v Speaker 1>That's usually one of my favorite views because you can just see a lot of days at once.

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<v Speaker 1>So those websites are going to show both Alaska and Hawaiian flights on there, as well as any American Airlines flights Using Alaska miles.

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<v Speaker 1>To book onto an American flight is going to follow different pricing.

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<v Speaker 1>I mentioned this a few weeks ago and for short haul flights the pricing for American flights can even be a little bit cheaper, but for flights to Hawaii it's a little bit more expensive.

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<v Speaker 1>So, going back to Hawaiian and Alaska flights, keep in mind that even though Alaska follows an award chart, it is dynamic, so you'll see pricing on peak days will be higher, but with that dynamic pricing, sometimes they run award sales too, which means you might see cheaper pricing.

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<v Speaker 1>Like American, alaska has a landing page for sales where you can filter by departure city and see pricing for sales from the lowest possible available price.

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<v Speaker 1>So when I logged on for some research, there were some specific routes that they were touting for sales like Seattle to Palm Springs, which they had for 4,500 points each way, or San Diego to Maui for 9,000 points each way.

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<v Speaker 1>Now, in practicality, most of these were only available for a few days, but it's worth looking at if you're flexible.

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<v Speaker 1>While the Alaska website is a great free tool, if you want to see a whole year at a time to find the best pricing, I'd recommend again seatsarrow, which is what I've been using a lot.

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<v Speaker 1>Even though the pro version costs money, it's been worth it for me.

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<v Speaker 1>And no, I don't have an affiliate link.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm not making money off of it.

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<v Speaker 1>I just find it to be the fastest way to search.

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<v Speaker 1>So with the pro version Sheets, aero can pull out a full year of Alaska award availability on the nonstop routes and then you could also search for connecting routes as well.

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<v Speaker 1>But again, you need the pro version to see a full year at a time.

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<v Speaker 1>At the beginning of the episode, I referenced a mistake I made and the first part I already talked about which was missing a payment on my Alaska card.

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<v Speaker 1>Obviously, I should have known better, but we were traveling for a few weeks.

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<v Speaker 1>I had a really hard time linking my bank account because I think previously I had unlinked that bank account, so it was more steps to get it linked again and I also just lost track of time.

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<v Speaker 1>I was able to call the bank and ask for the interest and late fee to be waived as a one-time exception if they could, and they did do that.

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<v Speaker 1>So just a reminder to ask if this happens to you, you can always call the bank and ask for those exceptions and for those fees to be waived.

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<v Speaker 1>But unfortunately for me this compounded into a second mistake, because when I missed the payment they locked my card and I couldn't make purchases on it.

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<v Speaker 1>So then it couldn't be unlocked until I had added my bank account again, which for some reason took me another week to get it confirmed.

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<v Speaker 1>And then by then I rushed to try to complete the minimum spend requirement, but by the time it actually posted it was two days after the bonus deadline and I didn't get the bonus.

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<v Speaker 1>Obviously that was embarrassing and also annoying.

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<v Speaker 1>I know better, but I'd still lost track of it.

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<v Speaker 1>But I still wanted to share that to remind everyone that sometimes things happen, sometimes we get busy.

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<v Speaker 1>I've been doing this for 14 years and it just happened to me.

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<v Speaker 1>It rarely happens if you stay organized, but sometimes it still might, and it's okay.

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<v Speaker 1>As I tell my team, nothing in points is a crisis.

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<v Speaker 1>It's just money and points, which is basically fake.

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<v Speaker 1>Money is not life or death.

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<v Speaker 1>We all make mistakes sometimes and that's okay.

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<v Speaker 1>My podcast episodes have gotten a little bit longer than I've intended them to, so I'm going to be trying to work to make them shorter again, more like in the 15 to 20 minute range, and some of that means that some of these episodes I'm going to break into two pieces, like I'm doing with this one.

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<v Speaker 1>There's a lot of time and research that goes into each episode and that also helps it to be more sustainable for me when they're a little bit shorter, because it can take a little bit less time for me.

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<v Speaker 1>But each episode does take about 15 to up to 20 hours to produce in total, from the scripting to the recording, to the editing and all of it.

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<v Speaker 1>So these next few episodes, I think, will be a little bit shorter than the first ones of this season.

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<v Speaker 1>For action steps today, here are a few things you can do.

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<v Speaker 1>First, if you are able to apply for business cards, I'd encourage you to look at that Hawaiian business card before it gets discontinued.

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<v Speaker 1>There aren't any affiliate or referral links, you can just Google it.

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<v Speaker 1>The offer is 50,000 points.

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<v Speaker 1>If you have space in your 524 count, you could look at the personal Hawaiian cards too, before those are discontinued.

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<v Speaker 1>I think that all of those cards are great to think about, even if you don't have a specific plan, because you don't have to keep those cards to keep those points from expiring.

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<v Speaker 1>And personally I like to just have diverse airline miles just in case.

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<v Speaker 1>Next, these things will only apply to you if you want to focus on Alaska miles or if you have a Bank of America card.

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<v Speaker 1>So the next action step if you have a Bank of America card any card, even a debit card check out the Museums.

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<v Speaker 1>On Us program.

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<v Speaker 1>I'll have a link in the show notes.

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<v Speaker 1>It's such a great little perk that's really underused.

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<v Speaker 1>See if there are places you'd want to go nearby or on a trip and keep it in mind for those first weekends of the month.

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<v Speaker 1>It's the first full weekends of the month, and the website has those listed out.

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<v Speaker 1>If you have kids, you might want to add them to your Bank of America card so that they can get in for free too, next time you fly Alaska, if you check a bag, set a timer and see if it takes longer than 20 minutes and then go to baggage office and claim your 2,500 points if it did take longer.

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<v Speaker 1>And then, lastly, if you want to focus on Alaska miles, make sure you sign up for mileage plan shopping as well as take a minute to look at those in-store deals.

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<v Speaker 1>Thanks so much for spending time with me today and we look forward to seeing you next time, where we will continue to unlock these secrets of travel points together.