Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles are quite flexible because they can be used to book flights on Oneworld and on independent partner airlines. But did you know that you can also use your Alaska Airlines miles to book hotels, too?

Here’s what you need to know about the airline’s hotel partners, as earning and redeeming miles at hotels may help you get even more value out of your Mileage Plan membership.

Current hotel partners

Here’s the full list of Alaska’s hotel partners:

Alaska Airlines hotel portal.

Best Western.

Choice Hotels.

Coast Hotels.

InterContinental Hotels Group.

Marriott Bonvoy.

Rocketmiles.

Westmark Hotels.

Understanding the Alaska Airlines hotel portal

Alaska Airlines hosts its own hotel portal. Although it’s been around for a while, it’s potentially an overlooked click on the website.

The portal is powered by Rocketmiles, a site that allows travelers to earn airline miles on hotel bookings. It is important to note that the hotel portal, while powered by Rocketmiles, is different from using Rocketmiles' own website to book and earn Alaska miles.

The travel portal is designed to allow travelers to earn bonus Alaska Airlines miles on accommodation bookings — up to 10,000 miles per night. This portal gives you access to even more hotel brands outside of their partnership portfolio. For instance, even though Alaska Airlines doesn’t have established relationships with these brands, you can use the portal to book stays at places like the Red Lion Hotel or Radisson.

Or, you can use the portal to redeem Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles for hotel stays. In this case, you’d spend miles in exchange for a hotel stay instead of a flight.

However, you’ll want to think twice about booking hotels through the portal if you want to earn loyalty benefits with that hotel. Hotels like Hilton and Marriott do not provide points or elite perks when you book with an online travel agency.

Earn Alaska Airlines miles for partner hotel stays

The simplest way to earn bonus Alaska Airlines miles for hotel stays is by using its website as the starting point for booking. You'll find links to each of the partner booking sites there. Incentives to book with Alaska's partners vary across the brands, from 2 miles for every dollar used toward accommodations at a qualified rate at Westmark Hotels to the chance to earn 250 miles per stay on qualifying rates at Best Western.

To receive miles, provide your Mileage Plan number when making reservations and checking in at the hotel.

How to compare your hotel booking options

There are different ways to earn bonus Alaska miles for hotel stays through its partners, but this comparison example highlights three different booking options — Alaska’s portal, Rocketmiles' website and the Hyatt website. These platforms price out hotel stays for slightly different costs and offer different miles earning possibilities.

For this reason, it’s definitely worth doing some comparison shopping, no matter which partner you book with.

Let’s do the math on a two-night stay in April 2023 at the Hyatt Regency in Seattle.

The NerdWallet's valuation for Alaska miles is currently 1.4 cents. Keep in mind that it’s possible to squeeze a lot more value out of your miles, so consider this valuation as a baseline.

1. Booking via the Alaska Airlines hotel portal

To use the Alaska Airlines portal, from the menu bar at the top click “book” and you will see a drop-down menu where you can choose "hotels."

This takes you into the Mileage Plan Hotels portal. From here, enter your destination and dates, then select the "pay cash and earn miles" option. You’ll see an array of Alaska Airlines hotel partners, along with the corresponding rates and the number of miles you’ll earn per night.

Our Seattle stay checks in at $377 and offers a bonus of 4,000 miles. Using our valuation, these 4,000 miles are worth $44, so if you take these into account as well, the total net cost of this reservation is $333.

If you want to earn additional miles, you can do that by electing the boost feature and pay $427 to get 6,000 miles.

2. Booking through Rocketmiles

When you start your hotel search on Rocketmiles, you have a choice for the type of airline miles you would like to earn. In this case, select Alaska Airlines miles. Next, you can choose a hotel from the array of Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan hotel partners, including our target, the Hyatt Regency Seattle.

For our dates, this stay is pricing out at approximately the same rate as the Alaska Airlines hotel portal: $377. The difference is that you’ll earn an extra 1,000 miles by booking with Rocketmiles.

Similar to the Alaska portal, Rocketmiles has a "boost" option, where you can choose to earn additional miles if you pay more for the stay. In this case, for the boosted stay, you would pay $425 and earn 7,000 miles. Here's how that would look.

3. Booking through the Hyatt website

Take your price comparison one step further by comparing the rates offered through the portals to the rates offered on the hotel’s own site.

Looking at the Hyatt site, the rate is even cheaper at $348 for the Members Advance Purchase rate.

In addition to being cheaper, booking your stay on the Hyatt website does come with a trade-off that is worth considering: Though you won’t earn bonus Alaska Airlines miles, it will entitle you to elite benefits, you'll earn World of Hyatt points, plus your stay will count toward elite status in the World of Hyatt program. If you book through any portal — Alaska, Rocketmiles, etc. — these benefits aren't available.

Rates compared: Alaska hotels vs. Rocketmiles vs. Hyatt website

Here’s how the three booking options shake out:

We assume a Hyatt earn rate of 5 points per $1, which is the rate offered to non-elite status. If you have elite status with Hyatt, you’ll earn even more points.

The value of the miles earned is based on NerdWallet’s 1.4 cents cent valuation of Alaska miles. Comparing all the options, the net cost is cheapest when booking the unboosted Rocketmiles rate ($322). However for just $7 more you could book directly with Hyatt and earn all the elite benefits that you’d miss out on by booking elsewhere. However, you would forgo earning Alaska miles.

As always, it pays to weigh out which option is worth more to you and some of that will depend on your status (or lack of it) with the hotel you're considering booking.

Redeem Alaska Airlines miles for hotel stays

You can redeem Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles for hotel stays, but this redemption doesn’t typically work out to be a valuable use of miles.

To start redeeming miles for a hotel stay on its portal, you would click the same tab you use to book a flight. Instead of selecting "flights," choose "hotels." From here, enter your destination and dates, then select the "redeem miles" option.

For the Hyatt Regency Seattle on our dates in April 2023, the total rings in at a hefty 53,500 miles. Using NerdWallet’s valuation, the total cost is $589.

Considering that you could redeem 50,000 Alaska miles for a one-way business class ticket from the U.S. to Asia, spending 53,500 miles on a 2-night stay at the Hyatt Regency Seattle might not be the best use of your miles.

One thing to note is that if you have an Alaska Airlines credit card, like the Alaska Airlines Visa® credit card or the Alaska Airlines Visa® Business card, you’re eligible for a discount when redeeming miles. Even with the discount, you’d still be spending a lot of miles — 48,600 in this instance.

Alaska Airlines hotel partners booking rules

There are a few more points to keep in mind before you book through the Alaska Airlines hotel portal:

Normally, Alaska Airlines Visa® credit card cardholders earn 3 miles per dollar spent on eligible Alaska Airlines purchases; however, these same cardholders will only earn 1 mile per dollar on purchases in either portal.

Bookings made in the hotel portal earn only the number of Mileage Plan Miles shown, regardless if you book with an Alaska Mileage Plan partner hotel brand or not.

Once redeemed, Mileage Plan Miles are nonrefundable on nonrefundable bookings, including bookings paid for with Mileage Plan Miles or a combination of miles and cash.

Hotel loyalty program tier status, points or privileges aren't extended on bookings made through either portal.

Alaska Airline hotel deals, recapped

When it comes to booking hotels, the Alaska Airlines hotel portal is an intriguing opportunity to earn bonus Alaska Airlines miles, both with the airline’s hotel partners and other brands. While another option is to redeem Alaska miles for hotel stays, this typically isn't a valuable use of Alaska Airlines miles.

However, rates and value vary quite a bit, so make sure to do your homework and compare rates before locking in a stay.