Alaska Airlines and Lyft have launched a partnership, allowing Mileage Plan members to earn miles for Lyft rides. This is awesome!
In this post:
Earn 1-2x Alaska miles per dollar spent with Lyft
It’s now possible to earn Alaska Mileage Plan miles for Lyft rides:
- Ordinarily you’ll earn one Mileage Plan mile per dollar spent on Lyft rides
- Through December 31, 2022, you’ll earn two Mileage Plan miles per dollar spent on Lyft rides
This is only valid for rides within the United States and Canada, and there’s no cap on how many miles you can earn with this partnership. Miles should post within 24 hours of an eligible ride, and you only need to link your accounts once. Only the base fare is eligible to earn miles, and not taxes, fees, tolls, and tips. Furthermore, bike and scooter rides are not eligible for earning miles.
Personally I value Alaska miles at 1.7 cents each, so to me this is the equivalent of a 1.7% return on spending with Lyft in the long run, and a 3.4% return on spending with Lyft for the remainder of 2022.
How to register for the Alaska & Lyft partnership
In order to participate in this partnership, you need to visit alaskalyft.com, and link your accounts. This should be an easy process, and requires signing into your Mileage Plan account and then signing into your Lyft account.
You’ll also want to make sure that Alaska Airlines is selected as your preferred Lyft partner. You can do this by:
- Opening the Lyft app and going to the “Rewards” menu
- From there you’ll want to scroll down to the “Travel Rewards” section, and then tap the “Select a Partner” button
- There you’ll want to make sure Alaska Mileage Plan is selected
Is this the best Lyft travel partnership?
Lyft only lets you earn miles or points with one travel partner, so how does the new Alaska partnership compare to existing partnerships? Lyft also has partnerships with Delta SkyMiles and Hilton Honors, so members can alternatively earn bonus rewards as follows:
- Hilton and Lyft have a partnership offering 3x Hilton Honors points per dollar spent on US Lyft private rides, and 2x Hilton Honors points per dollar spent on US Lyft shared rides, on up to $10,000 of spending per year
- Delta and Lyft have a partnership offering 2x Delta SkyMiles per dollar spent on US airport rides and 1x Delta SkyMiles per dollar spent on all other US Lyft rides
Personally I think the Alaska partnership is the most lucrative of the bunch. Previously I considered the Hilton partnership to be better than the Delta partnership, but now I’d consider the Alaska partnership to be even better (not just for the rest of 2022 for when you earn double miles, but even beyond that).
Take advantage of the Chase & Lyft partnership
Chase and Lyft have a partnership, whereby several cards offer bonus points on Lyft spending. Through March 31, 2025, the following Chase credit cards are offering bonus points on Lyft rides:
- The Chase Sapphire Reserve® (review) offers 10x points on Lyft rides
- The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (review) offers 5x points on Lyft rides
- The Chase Freedom FlexSM (review) offers 5x points on Lyft rides
- The Chase Freedom Unlimited® (review) offers 5x points on Lyft rides
- The Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card (review) offers 5x points on Lyft rides
- The Ink Business Cash® Credit Card (review) offers 5x points on Lyft rides
- The Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card (review) offers 5x points on Lyft rides
To take advantage of this, just add your eligible Chase card to your Lyft profile, and use it to pay for rides. There’s no limit on how many bonus points you can earn, and this can be stacked with earning Alaska miles, Delta miles, or Hilton points.
If you don’t have one of those cards, make sure you’re using one of the best cards for ride sharing purchases. For example, the American Express Green Card (review) offers 3x points on travel, while the World of Hyatt Credit Card (review) offers 2x points on ride sharing.
The information and associated card details on this page for the American Express Green Card has been collected independently by OMAAT and has not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
Bottom line
Alaska Airlines and Lyft have an awesome new partnership, allowing you to earn Mileage Plan miles for Lyft rides. For the remainder of 2022 you can earn 2x Mileage Plan miles per dollar spent with Lyft, and after that you can earn 1x Mileage Plan miles per dollar spent with Lyft.
I’d consider this to be the best Lyft partnership so far, and I’d recommend choosing this in place of the Delta SkyMiles or Hilton Honors partnerships. Along with earning 10x points with the Chase Sapphire Reserve, I’m a very happy Lyft customer.
What do you make of the new Alaska & Lyft partnership?
Anyone not getting the 2x? I took a Lyft ride and I only see 1x
Haven't tried yet as i'm currently outside US. But maybe the additional point posts later as a separate bonus?.
Anyone else not able to get alaskalyft.com to load?
Off topic but I have to comment: LHR is a f*cking NIGHTMARE and worth a story warning people.
Flew through yesterday on a connection, and it was literally 2+ hours of queuing to get through transfer security … and we were near first third of the line, with easily twice as many people behind us. No fast track option.
So after 2 hours we get to security, and as far as I can...
Off topic but I have to comment: LHR is a f*cking NIGHTMARE and worth a story warning people.
Flew through yesterday on a connection, and it was literally 2+ hours of queuing to get through transfer security … and we were near first third of the line, with easily twice as many people behind us. No fast track option.
So after 2 hours we get to security, and as far as I can tell, they’re being slow on purpose. I travel a lot - hell, went through LHR a week prior (through first wing) with the exact same bag and set up. We all know the little “put your liquids in the little clear bag” rule that is at almost all airports now. Well, most of us likely also know that airports don’t actually tear apart your bag if you have a lip gloss or tiny hand moisturizer under 3 fl oz in the bag.
Not LHR security. They were opening virtually EVERY bag. I watched the 10 bags pulled aside as I waited for them to get to mine for “additional screening.” They were going through, pulling out tiny things that weren’t taken out because in every other airport in the world (again, including First Wing security there), the security people aren’t absolutely ridiculous. I watched them pull apart at least two bags for a SINGLE item like lip gloss or a small travel size tooth paste. Of the 10 bags in front of mine, only 2 had things that would have warranted additional screening at a normal security line (eg a large container with liquid, a thick battery-looking thing shoved in a bag with cables and crap).
In each case, they insisted on swabbing the removed items and then neatly packing them in a clear bag for the person to take away. Again, there were several hundred in line, and no mention was made that they’re being wildly unreasonable sticklers about the liquid rules.
I traveled through LHR with the exact stuff the week prior. No problem. I’ve traveled through security at least 20 airports over 6 countries in the past year alone (several multiple times) with the exact stuff, in the exact same setup. No problem. I’ve seen security being aggressive with random checks, and sticklers about large containers with liquidy stuff, or kindles. I’ve never seen ANYTHING even remotely like this. Additional screening because someone didn’t pull out and separately bag a single bottle of eye drops that you already know is compliant? Unreal. In every lane in our section, at least half of the bags were being pulled aside. It was 30 minutes for them to do the additional screening on my bag.
LHR claims that this is an understaffing problem - which isn’t true, because all understaffing problems for this sort of job are easily, guaranteed to be solved by just f*cking PAYING more. But this was actually a “how the employees are unnecessarily choosing to do their jobs” problem. And now that I’ve written all this out, that seems like the only rational explanation for this ridiculous behavior: the staff are pissed off (maybe about understaffing??) and intentionally slowing things down by being literal sticklers for every single rule.
The CEO claims this is the new normal. I won’t be traveling to or through LHR again, I guess. Don’t count on making any connection there with less than 3 hours (and probably 4 to be safe). And yes, you do need to dig out your single tiny bottle of eye drops and put it in a clear bag for them. Or, as we wish we’d done, if you have access to first wing or any other fast track option - simply exit the airport and go back in rather than going through connections.
Unreal, and Emirates is 100% right: the CEO should be fired.
What are some good uses of Alaska Miles?
See here: https://onemileatatime.com/guides/redeem-alaska-mileage-plan-miles/#best_ways_to_use_alaska_mileage_plan_miles
One nice thing about crediting to Hilton is that it keeps your account active, and Hilton points still expire after 24 months of inactivity.
You can switch between Delta, Hilton & Alaska with a couple taps once your accounts are linked if that’s your concern.
Anyone else having issues linking the accounts? Tried online and from the app and getting an error.
This is in the terms when registering:
"...you agree to give Alaska Mileage Plan permission to...get notified in real time about rides you take, whether through the Lyft app or other apps, including location and route."
What information is one allowing Alaska Airlines to receive? Information about rides one takes with Uber or Blacklane? Alaska Air can follow your journey as you take it? It's not clear what the limitations are with this verbiage.
at 2x Alaska miles this is definitely better than 3x Hilton.... at 1x (after December) I think its close, but with Alaska hinting at devaluation I'm not sure we'll still feel that way...
This is awesome!!!