Last month Alaska and Virgin announced the next phase of their merger, with mileage conversion and status matching starting as of January 9th. Virgin America Elevate points will convert into Alaska Mileage Plan miles at a 1:1.3 ratio. Per Alaska’s website:
On January 9, 2017, we will invite you to enroll in Alaska’s award-winning Mileage Plan, enabling access to book award travel on Alaska Airlines and Alaska Global Partners network to over 900 worldwide destinations. Plus, you’ll receive more detail on how you can convert your Elevate points to Alaska Mileage Plan miles at a rate of 1.3 Mileage Plan miles per Elevate point. And for elite-level Elevate members, Alaska Mileage Plan will automatically match your elite status!
The transfer functionality went live a few hours ago, so you can now convert points from Elevate to Mileage Plan.
To start, go to this page, which will prompt you for your Virgin America Elevate credentials:
Once you’re signed in, you have the option to convert your points. It looks like this portal is being run by Points.com (which makes sense, as they handle mileage sales for both Alaska and Virgin America), so if you’ve exchanged points through their interface before this will be a familiar process.
If you haven’t, click on the circle in the blank “Turn into” box, and Alaska Mileage Plan should automatically populate:
From there, you’ll select how many points you want to exchange. The 1:1.3 ratio is hard-coded into the transfer, and as you move the slider you can see exactly how your Elevate points will be converted into Mileage Plan miles.
If you haven’t already linked your Mileage Plan account to Points.com, you’ll be asked for your name and Mileage Plan number, then directed to a summary screen.
You’ll be able to see the full details of the transfer, and what your new Mileage Plan balance will be before confirming.
The transfer was basically instant. As soon as I confirmed the transaction I received an email noting the transaction was being processed, and moments later one confirming my points had been converted:
As far as I can tell, it’s currently possible to transfer points from Virgin America to Alaska, but not the other way around. Keep that in mind before moving your points.
Bottom line
This seems like a pretty straightforward process, and if you’ve been hoping to transfer points from Virgin America to Alaska you can do so as of today. Of course, you don’t have to do this today, as there’s no rush. If you have Virgin America points and have been eyeing a specific Alaska award this is an easy way to top off your account though!
Theoretically, status matches should be happening as well. None of us here have Virgin America status, so I can’t confirm whether or not that is happening automatically. If you are an Elevate elite, please share your experience!
Will you be converting Elevate points to Mileage Plan?
(Tip of the hat to @CopaDelMundo7)
@Ethan, Worked for me too, thanks!
@John @Mike It worked!!!
@Ethan I was able to book for early June. Planning a trip with several people and flying back into different cities so had to do it ahead of time and couldnt play the last second game. No availability on any of the 4 seats HKG-JFK on the day we wanted.
Update: Roommate called Alaska again yesterday and initially they told him they couldn't link his accounts due to them being too new (obviously not true)....
@Ethan I was able to book for early June. Planning a trip with several people and flying back into different cities so had to do it ahead of time and couldnt play the last second game. No availability on any of the 4 seats HKG-JFK on the day we wanted.
Update: Roommate called Alaska again yesterday and initially they told him they couldn't link his accounts due to them being too new (obviously not true). Eventually was told that they couldn't give him a date, but hopefully by next week.
Too sad, mine still doesn't work.
@Mike ok thanks. I'll keep the faith. Just out of curiousity, how far in advance were your Cathay flights? I'm looking first 2 weeks and Feb and the availability still isn't showing up. I know that they don't usually release until the last minute...
@Ethan It finally worked for me and I got my flights booked. I never received an email though. I just went back to the points transfer site and it worked this time so I wouldn't hold your breathe waiting on an email. My roommate is still unable to transfer, however so it doesn't appear that the issue is resolved for everyone.
@Mike any luck? I just got back an automated response.
@Ethan you better not be trying to take the Cathay first I am looking at haha. I got through to alaska last night and they told me Monday at the latest however they told my roommate a week on Wednesday (they told me 1-3 business days on 1/9)...
@Mike @John Same... nothing yet. Super frustrating since some Cathay first availability showed up briefly for a date that I was looking. I've emailed Points.com and will report back
@ John. Nope nothing. Alaksa told me on Monday I was supposed to have received an email to be able to link by now, but nothing
Not working...
@Ethan @Mike, Have you got your issue resolved? I had the same issue and both my alaska and virgin america are pretty new.
The points.com website to transfer points does not work right now. It must be under heavy load.
Hi Tiffany -
What are the advantages and disadvantages of Linking your accounts -- i have miles on both, But definitely travel more on Virgin. After linked are those points usable on Virgin?
thanks for the instructions. But i would really appreciate an analysis of if it makes sense to do this or not.
@ Peri Drucker @ Uncle Nosh Nosh -- There's no reason not to link your accounts, whether or not you should transfer points from Virgin to Alaska depends on your redemption goals. Alaska awards typically represent the better value, but there are of course special situations.
AS created a new Mileage Plan account linked to my Elevate (Silver) account. I already had an Mileage Plan number, so I called AS Customer Service, and they merged the two Mileage Plans into one. I now have MVP status as well. I did have to wait several minutes to connect with Customer Service, but once there, the operator was friendly, helpful and efficient.
Robert, i think you must be transferring a huge amt of miles, which required manual approval?
Still waiting, things must be a complete mess at AS. Guess it's a good thing I have a transaction number, though there's no mention what to do with it :)
Did it, but though my Virgin points are gone from that account, Alaska doesn't recognize I have an account with them. Everything's vanished.
@Tiffany Thanks minor albeit important difference I almost missed. Thanks!! Thought it sounded too good to be true. :)
@Mike I have the same problem. The rep is telling me that its because my Virgin account is less than a year and a half old? Can anyone confirm if they've been able to process this with a newly created account?
So if I'm understanding correctly, I could transfer my chase sapphire rewards points to virgin Atlantic and then turn around and transfer them again to Alaska thereby giving me more options for awards flights. Is this correct? Has anyone tried this?
@ MAG -- Ultimate Rewards is a transfer partner of Virgin Atlantic not Virgin America so that won't work, unfortunately.
Still waiting for my transfer...the website told me, yesterday, that it was in progress...they must be swamped.
I never received an email, but this seemed to work for me. The transaction is being processed, but the website seemed to work just fine.
Same thing happened to me. The accounts are not linked. I called in and they couldn't link them since I never received the email about linking them. They emailed some other department and told me it would be 1-3 business days. Does anyone have the link or instructions that were included in the linking email?
Are Virgin America miles worth anything anymore, or have they been totally phased out?
When I enter my alaska mileage plan number and first/last name, I got error message "There is a problem connecting your account. Please contact our Customer Care team.". Any one else has same issue? thanks
Does anyone have a link or know how to link the accounts? I created both my elevate and mileage plans in January to take advantage of the SPG transfer, but never received linking instructions (presumably due to missing the cutover date).
So You should be able to do an indirect transfer of Amex/Citi currencies into Alaska Via virgin, no?
Anyone tried this? Would be nice if Alaska makes a one step tranfer but I guess that hasnt been agreed upon thusfar.
The link provided to "convert" no longer links to anything. It only brings up the nested photo. URL Link?
@ Alison B. -- Hmm, it's still correct in the post, but the page itself is weird. You have to click carefully in the text field in order to be able to enter your info. Just in case, the plain text link is: https://buy.points.com/marketing/alaska-blw/landing-page/
Transfer isn't instant, they must have a person eye-balling these since mine still hasn't gone through.
I'm an Elevate Gold (which was status matched from SW CP in mid-2016) and when VX and AS matched my accounts in December (I got the email that they had successfully linked my accounts), my Alaska status bumped up to MVP Gold, so I've had that since December.
I think I'm going to leave my VX points as-is for the moment as I don't have a redemption on the horizon. If the transfer is more...
I'm an Elevate Gold (which was status matched from SW CP in mid-2016) and when VX and AS matched my accounts in December (I got the email that they had successfully linked my accounts), my Alaska status bumped up to MVP Gold, so I've had that since December.
I think I'm going to leave my VX points as-is for the moment as I don't have a redemption on the horizon. If the transfer is more or less instant, no sense in moving points and limiting my flexibility if they can't be moved back.
Took 2 tries. First time the site would not accept the verification code that was emailed to me, but I just hit the "I did not receive a code" link and they resent it again, and it was accepted the 2nd time. Total time from start to finish was about 15 minutes, 32.5k new points in my Alaska account (from 20k starpoints transferred to Virgin last week).
Hey Tiffany, does @CopaDelMundo7 have a blog? Seems like's been pretty active lately on giving some info. Thanks.
I'm an Elevate Silver (and previously had no status with Alaska) and can confirm that the Alaska Airlines website now shows that I have MVP status.
@ Neel -- Awesome! Thank you!
Thanks for the step-by-step. Worked like a charm!
VX award is already bookable by AS miles. 7.5k for intra Cali, 12.5k for domestic, Hawaii for 20k. F is 2x Y.
It might be good value for transcon flights on Virgin F since availability is very good