Triangle Trip

With the pending merger between Alaska Airlines and Virgin America, Alaska will be merging its Mileage Plan with Virgin America’s Elevate Frequent Flyer programs. Virgin America’s Elevate Points will be converted to Alaska Mileage Plan miles at a rate of 1.3 Mileage Plan miles per 1 Elevate point. Unlike previous airline frequent flyer program conversions where it’s 1:1, the Virgin to Alaska miles conversion will net you 30% more miles. Everyone should try to earn more Virgin Elevate Points before the merger of the two frequent flyer programs.

Given Alaska’s generosity, we also recommend you move your hotel points to Virgin America’s Elevate points. For example, transferring your Starwood (SPG) Starpoints to Virgin America Elevate points is 1 Starpoint for 1 Elevate Point. If you transferred 20,000 SPG Starpoints, SPG would give you another 5,000 points for the transfer. After transferring the SPG Starpoints to Virgin Elevate Points and the Alaska Virgin frequent flyer merger, you can net up to 63% bonus in Alaska miles. We highly recommend you execute the above strategy before the Alaska and Virgin America programs merge on January 9, 2017.

Here are two related articles you may also find interesting:

If you are not an Alaska Airlines frequent flyer or do not want to maintain too many airline accounts, did you know that you can bank your airline miles with SkyTeam and OneWorld partners!? Click here to find out.

Here’s an article on why we think hotel points are more valuable than airline miles.

I’ve been avoiding this sector of social networking for so long… and now I’ll have to sign up for a foursquare account.

Our favorite hotel chain, Starwood (SPG) is offering 250 SPG bonus Starpoints when you check in via foursquare with a confirmed SPG reservation. The offer is from now through July 31, 2011.

Click on the picture below to be linked to the SPG promotion site. You’ll have to sign in using your SPG login then link your SPG account to your foursquare account.

A heads up to anyone with rewards reservations at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, as of last week they are no longer part of the Starwood (SPG) brand and will refuse you at reception.  No word yet on whether SPG is providing compensation to those with reservations, but it doesn’t look good.

“The Planet Hollywood Hotel & Casino, A Sheraton Resort will be leaving the Starwood system on January 15, 2010. Reservations for dates on or after January 15, 2010, will not be eligible for Starwood Preferred Guest membership benefits, award redemption or accrual.”  – SPG

Perhaps it’s the right time for SPG to step it up and broker a deal with the Bellagio!