Keep Alaska Air Miles from Expiring with FandangoNOW purchase

If you are inactive with your Alaska Miles account for a 2 year period then you can lose your account and your airline miles.    If you don't use the airline frequently then you can pile up some miles only to have them wiped out due to this.     I actually lost some miles not long ago,.   In my case Alaska was nice enough to reinstate the account for me but I doubt that they'd do it again.   

One way to keep your miles in an infrequently  used mileage plan is to find other cheap or trivial methods to generate miles for free or low cost and use that just frequently enough to remain active and delay the expiration.    On Alaska airlines you can get miles with their 'Mileage Plan Shopping' by making purchases with a variety of retailers. 

FandangoNow is one of the retailers in the Alaska shopping portal.    They have items you can purchase instantly for a couple dollars.   

Go to : mileageplanshopping.com and log in with your Alaska account.
Then search their portal to find the FandangoNow and follow its link there clicking the green 'Shop Now' button and you will be redirected to the FandangoNow site

Buy anything there worth >$1 and you're done.
Now just wait.   It doesn't credit to Alaska miles instantly and you'll have to give it maybe a couple weeks.   So don't wait until the last minute.

FandangoNow has various movies you can rent but the good stuff is usually $5 or $6.    If you want to see one of those movies anyway and need the miles credit then maybe thats not a bad deal.    There are also single episodes of TV shows for $2-3.    Or if you don't have any need for a movie rental or show you can always just find a $1.99 item to buy just to get the 2 miles credit and keep your Alaska miles active.

The Mileage Plan Shopping site says:

"While most transactions will appear within 5 business days, some transactions may take up to 15 
days in order to appear in the list above."

I made a $2.99 purchase on Sept. 24th.   I got my miles on the Alaska site on October 4th.

On the Mileage Plan site it posted the item there on October 1st. I got an email from Mileage Plan Shopping on October 3rd saying that I'd earned 3 miles by shopping.   Then October 4th  on the Alaska site it showed up with the 3 miles credited in my Mileage Plan account.

Altogether it took 10 calendar days from the purchase until it showed in my Alaska activity.

I'd recommend putting an item on your calendar to remind you that the miles are expiring 3-4 weeks in advance so you've go some time to go make a purchase and get the miles credited.

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