Virgin America and Joie de Vivre Promo
Virgin America announced a partnership today with Joie de Vivre hotels, a unique California boutique hotel chain. The promotion, spelled out here, allows Virgin Elevate members to double dip when staying at Joie de Vivre hotels for the rest of this year- meaning you can earn both Elevate and "Joy of Life" club points.
As far as Virgin's hotel partnerships, I'd say this one is more generous than Hilton (which gives 1 Elevate point per $2 spent) and less generous than Morgans Hotel Group which gives a standard 1,000 Elevate points per stay (unless your hotel stays are routinely over $1,000/ stay- then the Joie de Vivre partnership would be your best bet).
The value:
With Elevate- you earn 5 points per dollar spent on base airfare.Virgin Elevate points are worth about 2 cents a piece, so their program basically gives you back 10% in value. Spend $1,000 on airfare and you get $100 off a future flight.
With the "Joy of Life" club- you earn 1 point per dollar on hotel and points are worth about .75 cents each.
During the promo period, you can earn points in both programs until 12/31/10. Thereafter, you have to choose a program, which based on ROI, I'd recommend banking to Virgin.
Overall, I'm glad to see boutique hotels and "low-cost carriers" hopping on the loyalty program bandwagon. The more points-earning opportunities, the better!
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