Questions and Answers

I’m Alaska Gold and will soon fly Virgin America for the first time. Should I attach my Elevate or AS Mileage Plan acct to the reservation? Alaska says, “If you are using your Elevate number on VX flights, we will add those miles or segments toward your 2018 M.P. qualifications at year-end 2017”. So, does that mean that it’s a wash?

Depends on which you’d prefer to have more of. They each have decent redemptions.

And they may be talking about Elite Qualifying Miles and not necessarily redeemable miles.

To clarify: I only care about Alaska miles. Elevate miles only matter to me when they transfer to Alaska. I’m wondering if I’ll end up with more Alaska miles by directly crediting the VX flight to Alaska Mileage Plan, or by crediting to Elevate and then having it rolled over to MP at the end of the year? Or does it matter? Thanks

Depends on the route youre flying and how much you paid for the ticket.

If you credit directly to VX, you earn 5 points per dollar on the base fare. You can then transfer the points instantly to AS. You get 1.3 AS miles per VX point.

You can credit the flight directly to AS. Earnings are based on the fare class and the cart can be found here: [URL]https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mileage-plan/how-to-earn-miles/airline-partners/virgin-america.aspx[/URL]

You should work out the math and see which method would net you the most miles. An expensive fare for a short flight on VX can earn you more miles if you credit to VX and transfer the points rather than crediting directly to AS.

David, thanks so much for your help.
So: The base fare of my $218.10 ticket is $164.65. X5 = 823 Elevate points. This converts to Alaska miles x 1.3 = 1,069.9 Alaska miles at the end of the year.

If I use my Alaska number, the trip (PDX-SFO-PSP) is 1,944 miles flown. It’s an S ticket, so there’s no class-of-service bonus.
So, 1,069 QM if earned to Elevate, or 1,944 QM if earned to Alaska. Plus 100% bonus (non-QM) as an Alaska Gold.

If that’s correct, I know which account to credit the miles 🙂

yep!