Alaska Airlines deal: One-way fares start at $49

Airlines continue to mark down fares this January, and Alaska Airlines is offering one-way fares for as low as $49.

This Alaska deal allows you to fly to U.S. cities in Alaska’s network. The discount applies to trips from Jan. 24 to March 8. Blackout dates for this deal are Feb. 16 to Feb. 27.

You can book flights for this Alaska offer through Jan. 23. However, seats are already filling up for certain routes, so we recommend that you book quickly.

Deal basics

Airline: Alaska.
Routes: Dallas; Fort Lauderdale; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Milwaukee; Oakland, California; Seattle; and other cities within Alaska’s U.S. network have discounted routes.
How to book: Directly on Alaska’s website.
Travel dates: Jan. 24 to March 8 (Feb. 16 to Feb. 27 are blackout dates).
Book by: Jan. 23.

Sample flights

In this deal, the greatest number of discounted flights are from cities on the West Coast — particularly Seattle. Alaska is also offering a limited number of cheap flights from the New York area, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

Here are the Alaska Airlines flights we rounded up:

Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC) to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), from $49 one-way.
San Francisco International Airport (SFO) to Harry Reid International Airport (LAS), from $59 one-way.
Portland International Airport (PDX) to Oakland International Airport (OAK), from $69 one-way.
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) to Dulles International Airport (IAD), from $99 one-way.
Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) to LAX, from $99 one-way.
Kahului Airport (OGG) to San Diego International Airport (SAN), from $119 one-way.

The flights featured in this Alaska deal are all one-way flights. Depending on the dates you book, you can get the discounted price for each flight to and from your destination.

For example, if you want to book a flight from San Jose, California, to Los Angeles, Alaska’s booking calendar shows limited availability, as the only dates with the $49 one-way fare are Jan. 25 and Jan. 31.

If you choose those two dates in January, you’ll only end up paying $98 for a round-trip ticket from San Jose to Los Angeles.

What’s perhaps best about the deal for this route is that the Main and Saver fares are the same price, so an upgrade to Main in this case is a no-brainer.

The Saver fare, which is essentially Alaska’s basic economy fare, can be restrictive as passengers cannot choose seats or make changes to their flights. Passengers are also not eligible for refunds with Saver fares.

The Main fare, on the other hand, includes seat selection and passengers can make changes to their flights.

Seat selection is included in the Main fare, so you won’t pay any additional fees.

However, at the time of publication, we saw that most of the main cabin seats on this Alaska flight were already booked. We suggest booking your flights as soon as possible to snag this deal.

Maximize your purchase

When booking flights, use a card that earns bonus points on airfare purchases, like The Platinum Card® from American Express (5 points per dollar on airfare booked directly with the airline or through American Express Travel, on up to $500,000 on these purchases per calendar year), Citi Prestige® Card (5 points per dollar on airfare), Citi Premier® Card, Chase Sapphire Reserve (3 points per dollar on airfare), American Express® Gold Card (3 points per dollar on airfare when booked directly with the airline or through Amex Travel) or the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card (2 points per dollar on travel). Check out this post for more on maximizing airfare purchases.

The information for the Citi Prestige Card has been collected independently by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

Bottom line

This Alaska deal is great if you’re trying to book a trip in a pinch, as one-way fares as low as $49 are hard to come by for some of these routes.

However, availability for this deal is limited, so these fares may not last.

When we checked availability for a flight from San Jose to Los Angeles, Alaska already showed a limited amount of dates for the low $49 fare.

Also, the seats on the flight were already mostly filled, so we recommend booking these flights as soon as possible.