I’ve been sitting on over $1300 worth of travel funds in my Alaska Mileage Plan account for a couple years. Back when I used to work in Costa Rica, I tried to use Alaska Airlines whenever possible because their miles are so valuable, and as a result of changing plans and canceling flights a few times the cost of the tickets were deposited into an account called My Wallet.
Living in Tampa however has made it very difficult to use up the funds on Alaska flights since they have extremely limited flight selections out of Central Florida. I was able to book a flight and cancel it about a year ago to extend the Wallet Funds expiration date, but today I was given a gift.
Back a couple of months ago there were reports that Alaska was allowing some members to convert their wallet funds to miles, but I wasn’t lucky enough to be targeted.
Today they opened up the opportunity to all Mileage Plan members with a Wallet Fund balance, so I was able to cash in.
This opens up a lot more possibilities for international travel with the excellent variety of Alaska’s partner airlines.
I have used Mileage Plan miles for some amazing redemptions the last couple of years, so being able to convert these funds to miles at .01 each is an amazing opportunity.
A few examples of my Alaska redemptions:
• March 2018 – Qantas First Class Dallas – Sydney (70,000 miles)
• June 2019 Round the world trip –
• British Airways Premium Economy Tampa – London – Munich (60,000 miles)
• Cathay Pacific Business Class Brussels – Hong Kong (42,500 miles)
• Cathay Pacific Business Class Hong Kong – New York (50,000 miles)
I definitely welcome the opportunity to add 134,000+ miles to my account knowing I can get way more than $1344 in value from those miles.
The Wrap Up
Alaska Mileage Plan is allowing members with unused funds in their My Wallet account to convert the money to miles at a rate of 10,000 miles for each $100. Members can convert either 25%, 50%, 75% or the full 100% of their balance into miles. I consider this an amazing opportunity, and will be taking full advantage.
The Terms and Conditions say that you must receive the email, but this seems to be open to all members with a My Wallet balance, so be sure to check your account even if you didn’t receive an email.