Why You Must Have the Alaskan Airlines MBNA Canada Card

The Alaska Airlines MBNA Mastercard has a great welcome bonus--25K Alaskan Miles after spending $1K on the card within the first 90 days.  That's enough for a cross country flight (like many other airlines).  The card costs $75, but through Great Canadian Rebates, you can back $60, so you only pay $15 for the card for the first year!  Please use the link in the above pic of the card to apply, in case you have not yet signed up for Great Canadian Rebates, it will give me a small referral bonus.

Since they don't have an official affilation with an airline group such as One World or Star Alliance, they have individual deals with MANY airlines, including ones that will take you to Asia and the Middle East.  Many will rake up their points and use them to fly business or first class somewhere as it's an excellent use of points to do so.  A friend flew from on Hainan Airlines, China back to Toronto in business class for 50K Alaskan Miles and $50 in taxes.

For meat and potatoes kind of people, you may just want to use them like this: Instead of using them for an affiliate airline, you may want to fly directly with them.  Their closest city to Toronto that they depart from is Detroit (4 hour drive) but then you can fly to Seattle directly for 25K and only $6 each way in taxes!  You can fly from Seattle to Victoria, Vancouver, Kelowna, L.A., San Fran--Alaska flies directly to all of these and more cities.  Then, with the companion pass that comes with the card, you can fly once a year with a companion for $122USD, so a family of 4 can fly for $6 x 2 (each way) x 2 (passengers) for $24, plus $122 x 2 (companion passengers) totalling $268USD for a family of 4 to Seattle direct and a bit more in taxes to go to another destination in North America on the west coast!  For example, flying to Kelowna was $45 in taxes instead of $6, but the same number of points, and the companion fare won't go up.  You can ONLY use the companion fare to fly Alaskan.

You can use their interactive map by clicking HERE to see where you can go with the points. 

Keep in mind, it's a Mastercard, which in Canada, is accepted EVERYWHERE--No Frills, Costco, and everywhere else that all the other cards are accepted.