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Back in early April, when Alaska Airlines was announced as the winning bidder in the fight to acquire Virgin America, a significant part of the discussion focused on what Alaska would do to keep Virgin's loyal following after the merger.
Just three weeks later, Alaska CEO Brad Tilden took to the stage at the annual IATA Annual General Meeting and declared ‘the biggest challenge' for Alaska will be appealing to both its customers and Virgins at the same time. That with Virgin's distinctive style and in-flight product, Alaska may need to keep using the Virgin branding in some way. This followed a comment from a JP Morgan analyst on the same call that he had underestimated Virgin America's following.
Well, it turns out the Virgin brand is now even more valuable after being named the “Top Domestic Airline” in Travel + Leisure's World's Best Awards readers' survey for a record ninth time. Just putting that into perspective, Virgin America has only been flying ten years, so it has won every single year since it started flying.
To celebrate, Virgin has announced an Elevate® 50% Bonus Points offer through August 31, 2016. It's a safe assumption that the 50% bonus points are also Virgin firing another shot, in the tit-for-tat promotions war between Virgin America and JetBlue, after the latter lost out on purchasing Virgin to Alaska. Just last week, JetBlue dropped one of the most lucrative points matches seen in a long time by the points community, matching Virgin Elevate balances with up to 75,000 JetBlue TrueBlue points in an attempt to poach Virgin loyalists away from the brand during the uncertainty of the merger.
How To Register For The Virgin 50% Bonus Points Offer
To qualify for this offer, you need to:
- Be enrolled in Elevate before registering for the promotion
- Register for the 50% bonus points offer before your travel
- Correctly add your Elevate account number to your reservation before the first travel date
A few things to note:
- Changes and cancellations may result in disqualification from the offer
- Any travel that would not typically earn Reward points, including Elevate rewards bookings, are excluded from this offer
- Bonus points received from the promotion cannot be transferred between accounts
- You will not qualify for the offer if you choose to earn points or miles with a partner airline
- Only Tickets with the Virgin America prefix (‘VX'), operated by Virgin America will qualify and points will post to your account in 4-6 weeks after flying
How Many Extra Points Will I Receive?
Non-elite Virgin Red members typically earn 5 points per dollar spent, with Silver and Gold earning 7.5 and 12 points respectively. With the 50% bonus on base points, you will pick up an extra 2.5 points per dollar regardless of Elevate status.
Virgin Elevate Status | Standard Points | With 50% Bonus |
Elevate Red | 5 | 7.5 |
Elevate Silver | 7.5 | 10 |
Elevate Gold | 12 | 14.5 |
While these aren't life changing numbers, as one of the more valuable airline miles already, this puts Virgin right up at the top of the carrier table for return on money spent.
Final Thoughts
While Virgin has labeled this promotion a celebration for winning the T & L Best Domestic Airline award, I suspect it has as much to do with its current battle with JetBlue as any celebration. That doesn't make it a bad thing in any way, good old fashioned promotional warfare between airlines is always in the Flyers best interest as the fight is for our backsides in their seats, and each promotion is a discounted offer of some kind.
We can only hope Alaska decides to keep the Virgin brand flying, and the promotions keep coming.
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