There’s been plenty of word out not just about the ability to start transferring points 1 to 1.3 from Virgin American to Alaska Airlines but also about a free 10,000 Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan points being mysteriously deposited into member accounts.
If you’re a Virgin America Elevate member (and had the account open by December 5) then when you join Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan by January 31 they’ll give you your choice of 10,000 miles or $100 towards a ticket. (HT: Frequent Flyer Bonuses)
Choice of 10,000 bonus miles or $100 discount is valid only for active members of Virgin America Elevate as of December 5, 2016 who were not members of Alaska Mileage Plan. Only one offer can be selected, and choice of offer cannot be changed after account activation. Qualifying members will have through January 31, 2017 to make their selection. Any individual may receive a maximum of one offer, even if they hold multiple separate Elevate accounts. Your welcome offer will be deposited in your account within 24 hours of activation.
They didn’t want to just give Virgin members miles while ignoring their own members so according to an Alaska Airlines spokesperson, as reported by Julian Mark Kheel, if you had active Alaska Airlines and Virgin America accounts already you’ll be getting 10,000 bonus Alaska Airlines miles automatically within the next few days.
We understand that many Mileage Plan members have questions about a surprise 10,000 mile gift that started appearing in some accounts last night, and we wanted to help put some of the mystery to rest. We can’t wait to show members of both programs what more to love looks like with Alaska Mileage Plan, and decided to kick things off with a 10,000 mile bonus award to thank our guests who have been loyal members of both Elevate and Mileage Plan. The gift process is expected to be completed over the course of next couple of days, and eligible members — which includes guests who were active in both Elevate and Mileage Plan as of December 5, 2016 — should look for an email from Mileage Plan later this week. Elevate members who don’t have a Mileage Plan account will be invited to activate one, along with details about their own special welcome offer, how to convert points, and status matching. For now, please sit tight, and we’ll be sharing more information about what members have to look forward to in the next couple of days.
I have a feeling this could get messy, as any data matching project is. Give it a few days, and then folks who meet the critera (“active in both Elevate and Mileage Plan as of December 5”) who do not receive 10,000 bonus Alaska Airlines miles will likely start asking after them.
What’s left out here though, it seems, are Alaska Airlines members who didn’t have active Virgin America accounts. Certainly some received the miles — after all, data matching — but those who haven’t may not have much of an argument at least on the basis of Alaska’s public statements so far.
Still it seems odd to give miles to people who weren’t exclusively loyal to Alaska so perhaps more miles will be forthcoming there as well.
I had accounts with both Alaska and Virgin America and haven’t yet seen anything so I’ll be following up if nothing arrives in a few days.
Fantastic! Great idea and PR for the merger. Class act.
Hi;
If you hear from them, can you find out whether their needs to be a positive point balance in the Virgin account?
Thanks for the head’s up! Mine posted, my wife’s did not. I had 1,000 points via some promotion, my wife had zero.
Hi Gary,
I wish I had seen this last night. I didn’t use that link to sign my husband and I up for Alaska Mileage Plan, but did sign us both up yesterday and we are both are Elevate members and have been for many months. It’s a little confusing to me how they’ll even know we are Elevate members now. Is there some way to link the two accounts. I tried signing in and then using the link you provided above, but it didn’t work. Any advice? I’d hate to miss out on 10K points each.
We didn’t have it yesterday during all the buzz, but sure enough my husband and I got it this morning. Thanks Gary!
Any idea what constitutes an “Active” account? I had a pre-December Virgin account with a 0 balance and Alaska account created post-December 5 with upcoming flights… sounds like I’m not going to get credit for either of those, am I?
Yeah, I’m also curious about the term “active”. I have a Virgin account but haven’t credited anything there in a long time since it didn’t make sense. (I credited to Singapore instead.) No miles yet in my Alaska account yet, so we’ll see.
Got my 10,000 miles yesterday, which completed the best deal I have EVER pulled off!
I transferred 35,000 Citi TY (could have been Chase UR – don’t remember!) to Virgin as part of JetBlue mileage match last year.
Factoring in the 1.3 exchange rate and the 10,000 mile bonus from yesterday, those 35,000 points netted me 50,000 JetBlue miles AND 49,650 Alaska miles!
Thanks for all of the great tips!
I fall into the category of having a long-standing AS account, but not opening up an Elevate account until after December 5 (I have one that I opened later in December to facilitate some transfers).
Needless to say, there were no bonus miles for me.
I’ve had an Elevate account for years, but I didn’t get the Alaska welcome email, so I don’t know my new Mileage Plan number, without which I can’t fill in the form.
It didn’t go to my spam folder, so it appears they simply didn’t send the email to some VX customers. Odd.
@Eric W. Same here; didn’t get the email. Hopefully it will come soon.
My wife had a Virgin America account solely to credit Silvercar rentals to. We had an Alaska account for her for getting the credit card for the companion ticket (back when it was good on business fares which you tipped me off about years ago). Now we have an extra 10,000 miles. Thx!
@GaryLeff —
1) I already have active accounts with both VX and AS. As of this writing, I have Gold status with Virgin America, and was granted comparable status (MVP Gold) with Alaska when they offered to match VX status a few months ago. This morning, I had an extra 10,000 miles in my Alaska acct.
2) My wife already has an active account with VX (Silver), and was granted MVP status with AS. That said, she has a zero balance in her AS account, and — as of this writing — has received ZERO miles.
3) My daughters have active VX accounts (but no status), and although they have AS accounts, they too have a zero balance and have not received any miles.
4) My mother-in-law has an active VX account with no status; as of the December 5th date (see Alaska’s announcement above), she had a zero miles balance, but flew First Class on Alaska OAK-OGG r/t over the year-end holidays. She, too, has not received any miles.
By the way, there is a way to link the accounts. If you just follow the link that was provided by Gary in his previous post https://buy.points.com/marketing/alaska-blw/landing-page/ and go through the process (even if you dont have any miles in Elevate), the last option window asks you to link the accounts.
https://www.alaskaair.com/elevatemember/activate for this it looks like you have to already have received your alaska mileage olan number, is there any way to do this if you havent gotten an email yet?
Got my email from Alaska this morning
Is it better to take the 10,000 miles or the $100 off?
@lena – i definitely value Alaska miles at more than a penny apiece
Woo Hoo!!! My wife and I each received the 10k bonus miles on Jan 8th. Woo Hoo!!
For someone who currently has 0 alaska airline miles and doesn’t plan to fly Virgin/Alaska often, does it make more sense to take these miles as a $100 credit instead of 10,000 miles?
I have the same question as Boris.
Also, when I clicked on the link in the email and filled out the form, I get an error:
Invalid information entered. Please try again. For assistance, contact Alaska Airlines Reservations at 1-800-252-7522.
Error is for the mileage number, which was created for me already in the email and already populated in the form. “If your information hasn’t already auto-populated into the fields below, enter your Mileage Plan number, name, birth date and email. If you don’t know the Mileage Plan number we’ve automatically assigned you, please check the welcome mail we sent you.”
UPDATE:
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
3) My daughters have active VX accounts (but no status), and although they have AS accounts, they too have a zero balance and have not received any miles.
4) My mother-in-law has an active VX account with no status; as of the December 5th date (see Alaska’s announcement above), she had a zero miles balance, but flew First Class on Alaska OAK-OGG r/t over the year-end holidays. She, too, has not received any miles.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
24 hours later, and one daughter our of two and my mother-in-law have both received the 10,000 . . .
I got the 10k bonus but wife didn’t. Turns out that they expired her 1k-ish Elevate miles she had on 10/4/16, when the date that they said you had to be “active” in both programs was 10/5/16!! Ugh…….
Per activation website, deadline to select 10K/$100 was extended to February 28, 2017!
https://www.alaskaair.com/elevatemember/activate
I’m just an Alastair airlines frequent flyer do I get 10000 miles also?