Thank you for your swift response!

Now that the horse is out of the barn, I could have answered my own question by Googling it.

I would also suspect the acronym came into use on FT because SM could ambiguously represent both Silver Medallion and SkyMiles. Therefore, the internal DL code of "FO" was probably used by someone waaaay back, and it caught on.

I have no knowledge to attest to this; it's just my idle speculation. :p

Both are correct :)


:D Isn't it easier to ask us than googling it up? Just like an executive having an executive assistant ;)

Given the way Delta has treated Silvers, it can also stand for something else :) I won't say it since this is a public board ..but the second word is "off"

Alaska Visa Purchase Bonus
 

Nice idea with the new forum. I've got a question. I have an Alaska Air Visa Platinum. I can't figure out the purchase bonus. Usually I get a bonus equal to the amount of the ticket purchase (example 675 miles for "platinum card activity" and then 675 for "platinum card ticket purchase bonus", both with the same date. Sometimes I also get an additional "SPECIAL SERVICES
WEB PURCHASE BONUS WITH BANK CARD" of 1000 miles. This extra 1000k is dated the day I purchase the ticket. The last two time I got the 1000k was when I was flying with my daughter using my companion fare.

Is the 1000k bonus coming from using the companion fare? I seem to remember getting it before on on regular ticket purchases (also used to get web check in bonuses). Where can you look up current bonuses?

Thanks to all the FTers who take the time to help out!

Umm.....continuing research shows that when you are buying the ticket for someone else (my lovely college daughter) THEY get the 1000k bonus. Aha. That explains it...because most of my purchases seem to be gettting her too and from school these days. I still get the matching bonus miles for the ticket price :)

:)

When making purchases with your Alaska visa you will always get 1,000 bonus miles per e-ticket with AS FF # booked. Therefore, if you put in your daughter's Alaska FF# when making the reservation with your Alaska visa, your daughter will get the 1,000 bonus too... Heck, if you have 5 people on your reservation and if you put in their Alaska # they all will get the 1,000 bonus. Just make sure you put in their AS# when making the reservation, not after.

This is one of my favorite benefits with my Alaska Visa card :D

For the Platinum card bonus, you will get 2x miles per $1 spend with Alaska. So if you spent $300, the first 300 miles are already included with all the other transactions you made with your CC during the month. You will also get an extra 300 miles on top of it as part of the 2x bonus miles.

Basically for Platinum cardholders:

1,000 bonus miles every time you use your Alaska Visa
2x miles per $1 spent on Alaska Airlines [not sure if that includes inflight purchases]

Also, a hint, if you are not using a companion ticket, you could book two one-way tickets and get 2,000 miles instead of 1,000!

That came to my benefit recently when a work colleague bought me a ticket using their card - actually, I think everyone on the itinerary gets miles. Another benefit IME is that if you later cancel the ticket, you keep the 1,000 miles - even on fully refundable tickets.

If any AS Visa cardholder purchases a ticket on alaskaair.com, the AS MP member named in the reservation will receive a 1000-mile purchase bonus.

Savvy mileage collectors have learned to split a round-trip ticket into two separate purchases to take advantage of this bonus, given that AS offers no pricing benefit to a round-trip purchase.

Wirelessly posted (beckoa\'s PWP wonderous poster: BlackBerry9000/4.6.0.304 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

YMMV on that one...

It seems they can be reversed if the $ is put back on your CC...

I'm assuming you're purchasing the tickets with your Alaska Airlines Visa card. If so, this would be the 1,000-mile booking bonus that comes whenever you buy your ticket using your Alaska Airlines Visa card. All passengers in the reservation get the 1,000-mile bonus if the ticket was paid for with an Alaska Airlines Visa card, so it doesn't have anything to do with the companion certificate but rather the card you use to buy it.

Am I making sense? It's been a long day of travel and my brain is a little fried... :)

Also, if you need to change the ticket at the last minute, having two different tickets can save you big bucks. Then you only pay the difference for the one way, not the entire round trip.

This isn't accurate. You are only charged for the changed segments, not the entire round trip.

AND...If you are not a Gold, having 2 tickets means 2 change fees, so it will cost you more, not less.

What I'm refering to is if you have already flown the outbound, you are not charge anything on that. The fees only accrue on the return ticket segments. Is that not correct?

I'm not sure what you mean. You are saying that having separate tickets will somehow save you money on changes... and I dont know how you are coming to that conclusion.