You may also want to consider another approach to credit card usage. You can earn Alaska miles with both the Starwood Preferred Guest credit card from American Express and Diners Club Mastercard from Citibank. However, these cards do not automatically transfer the miles to your Alaska account. Instead they are accumulated and can be transferred when required to any of a couple dozen airlines. This gives you additional flexibility to redeem through Alaska or through another airline or a hotel program.

The Starwood card's unique benefit is a 25% bonus when you transfer blocks of 20,000 points which becomes 25,000 miles in most airline programs. This means you can actually earn more miles per dollar on most purchases than using Alaska's own card. The annual fee is waived the first year and is only $30 thereafter. The card is now issued in both personal and business versions.

The Diners Club Mastercard's unique benefits are the ability to transfer to multiple hotel programs and better insurance. The annual fee is $95.

dennis