Starwood is shifting its Virgin America loyalty link to Alaska Airlines’ Mileage Plan. (Image: Alaska Airlines)
Members of the Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) loyalty program won’t be able to participate in Virgin America’s Elevate plan in about a week.
John Wolf, a loyalty marketing executive at Starwood parent Marriott International, tells TravelSkills that SPG “has decided to focus its partnership on Alaska (Airlines’) Mileage Plan and end its partnership with Virgin America’s Elevate program.”
The company is encouraging SPG members who participate in Elevate to join Alaska’s Mileage Plan if they’re not already in it.
After January 6, Wolf told us, SPG members won’t be able to earn Elevate points on their hotel stays, or directly transfer SPG Starpoints into Elevate accounts.
“SPG members will be able to use Starpoints to travel on Virgin America by transferring Starpoints to Alaska Mileage Plan miles and redeeming them for Virgin America flights on alaskaair.com starting January 9, 2017,” he said.
“Furthermore, SPG members can continue to transfer Starpoints to Alaska Mileage Plan at a 1:1 ratio – and earn 5,000 bonus miles when they transfer 20,000 Starpoints to Alaska Mileage Plan.”
Alaska Airlines has already said that starting January 9, Elevate members will be invited to start new accounts in Mileage Plan so they can earn award travel on Alaska and its international partners. The airline said Elevate members will be able to convert Elevate points into Mileage Plan miles at a rate of 1.3 Mileage Plan miles per Elevate point.
Marriott Rewards is also an Elevate partner, but Wolf noted that there is no change in the Marriott-Elevate relationship. “The two programs (SPG and Marriott Rewards) continue to be run separately until a new program is introduced,” he said.
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Keep in mind if you transfer Virgin America Elevate points to Alaska MileagePlan miles, you get a 30% bonus; SPG points convert 1:1 right now to both VX and AS, so my sense is Alaska was trying to close this loophole to prevent having to pay out 30% richer for SPG conversion.
However, for anyone wanting Alaska miles (or Virgin America Elevate Points), transfer now to Virgin America Elevate and then convert over to Alaska and you’ll have effectively a 30% bonus on conversions done between now and Jan 6.