You Can Now Transfer Virgin America Elevate Points to Alaska
When the Virgin America and Alaska Airlines deal closed last month, we knew almost immediately that members would be able to transfer Virgin America Elevate points to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles at a 1 to 1.3 ratio. And as of today, that transfer option is now live.
To transfer your Elevate points to Mileage Plan miles, go to this Points.com website and log in to your Virgin America Elevate account.
Once you log in, you'll be able to select the option of transferring to Mileage Plan. You'll have to register both of your accounts before your first transfer.
On the page, there's an option to select how many points you want to transfer. Once you begin sliding to the number of Virgin America Elevate points you want to transfer, the bar will auto-complete with the corresponding number of Mileage Plan miles. Toward the bottom of the page, a notice explains that there are no minimums or limits to the number of transactions you complete.
As an example, I chose to transfer 50 Elevate points, which comes out to 65 Mileage Plan miles. Once I clicked "Next Step," I got a confirmation and notification that I had successfully converted the points.
Right after completing the transfer, I got an email saying that my transfer was being processed. About two minutes after receiving that email, I got a follow-up message that the transfer had completed. I logged in to my Mileage Plan account and the 65 miles were posted in my account. In all, the process took less than four minutes.
Unfortunately, even if you wanted to transfer your miles in the opposite direction (from Mileage Plan miles to Elevate points), you wouldn't be able to. Overall, this is another step in the integration of the two airlines. When the merger first closed, we were told that we would receive word of how to link accounts today, but there's no update on when that will come through. However, a representative on Twitter said that members should be getting an email today or tomorrow on how to link accounts.
Today, we did also find out that many Mileage Plan members received 10,000 miles in their account — and if you haven't received the miles in your account yet, you still might!
