Yesterday many Alaska MileagePlan members reported receiving 10,000 bonus miles in their account. While some people didn’t receive anything, it appears that they will. Per The Points Guy, Alaska Airlines has confirmed that every person with an active Alaska MileagePlan and Virgin Elevate account as of December 5, 2016 will receive the 10,000 mile gift.
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.
While this is not confirmed, many Virgin Elevate members who sign-up for Alaska MileagePlan are being offered 10,000 miles or a $100 credit as well. It appears that everyone wins.
Points Conversions
In addition to the above gifts, Alaska Airlines has now opened up points transfers from Virgin America Elevate. As a reminder, 1 Elevate point = 1.3 Alaska Airlines miles. You can convert your points here. Note, that points can only be transferred in one direction (Virgin to Alaska) and cannot be converted back.
Award Bookings
Finally, Virgin America award space now shows on the Alaska Airlines website and is bookable with Alaska miles. According to VM on Twitter, intra-California flights are 7.5K each way, domestic flights are 12.5K each way and Hawaii flights are 20K each way. First class awards are double the cost of economy.
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[…] with Virgin (back in January). The reason I did so was to take advantage of the outsized value in transferring the Virgin points to Alaska. However, I have not transferred those points to Alaska yet — and Rocky explains exactly […]
Just as an additional datapoint for anyone like me:
I had an Elevate Account and zero activity other than signup. I got my 10K mile offer today and it worked, so make sure you watch your email even if you never used your account.
I have a Virgin Elevate account, but not an Alaska MileagePlan account. I got the email offer with the 10K bonus miles, but when I tried to activate my Alaska account I got an error message that said “Unexpected error code when creating my account: eBILLCITY”. Anybody else having this problem and any solutions? Thanks.
I figured out what was going on. I attempted to use a different email address to setup my Alaska account than the one associated with my Virgin account. When I used the same email address everything went through.
Do you think it would be unwise to requalify for elite status in 2017 under elevate?
I got my 10K in that the last hour or two. I have never flown Virgin America, but I had 500 points (signup bonus or something). I transferred those earlier today. It just goes to show you that you should pick up those odd points in programs you may not really use much. You never know.
I sort of didn’t want to start thinking it was coming, and risk being disappointed.
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This is so amazing! We are working hard to earn Alaska miles for a special trip. Thank you FM for all your reporting (especially the SPG — VA — Alaska transfers) you have been wonderful!!
Thank you.
Any reason I should not transfer Elevate to Alaska yet?
I wonder if moving miles resets the expiration clock. I might hold off on moving the miles if you don’t fly Virgin America or Alaska often. If the miles in one account are going to expire in a month or two, I would transfer the minimum amount of miles and see if the expiration dates change in either account.
No emails but my wife and I each got 10K Alaska miles – nicely done, Alaska!