Though once codeshare partners, Delta and Alaska have been getting progressively aggressive in their battle for territory. Seattle is one of Alaska Air’s biggest cities, and and serves as a great routing city for Delta to cities in Asia. Since 2014, however, there has been a widening rift between the two.
There are currently two promotions available to flyers in Seattle, though one is available only to those not currently belonging to the SkyMiles program. You need to be living in Washington state to take advantage of these, though.
The first offers a starting 5,000 miles just for joining, and then doubles your earnings for the duration of the program (November 30th). If you complete two round-trip flights in that time, you get Gold Medallion Status through January 2017.
Meanwhile, 12status is a program that rewards fans of the Seattle Seahawks that are also SkyMiles members. You can see all that this entails at their website, but suffice it to say, it is quite compelling! Just be sure to do the first promotion first, as it offers quite a nice starting bonus (and double miles through the end of November).
Meanwhile, Alaska responded with a fantasy football driven miles program. Each passing yard added to Russel Wilson’s stats for the season equates to 100 miles to “the pot”. At the end of the season, three individuals will be selected at random to split it. The nice thing here is that you don’t have to be a resident of Washington state to participate!
While it’s unlikely that Alaska will be kicked out of their home airport (especially now that they are acquiring Virgin America to solidify their West-coast presence), competition is always good from a consumer’s standpoint! Who are you rooting for?
