The best points that you can ever accumulate for loyalty programs are the ones that you do very little if anything to receive. Case in point would be the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan which has received quite a bit of press lately. According to many outlets, Alaska Airlines members have been receiving a bonus of 10,000 points if they have been a member of their program and a member of the Virgin Elevate Program. That’s a fantastic offer and one that seems to be irrelevant of what type of status you have within the programs. If you’re a member, then you will receive 10,000 points. But what if you’re on only a member of Elevate? Can you still receive the points. The answer? Yes. But it comes with a catch.
Much to my surprise, I received an email today from Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan telling me the good news of my 10,000 point offer or $100 off my next booking on an Alaska Airlines flight. Only one thing I must point out though. I’m not an Alaska Airlines Mileage member. It’s that very point that made me regret never joining over the last week or so as this bonus news trickled out. But yet, here is the invite. So exactly how did I receive the bonus? Well, if not for a fortunate bit of luck it never would have happened.
As noted, I may not be an Alaska Airlines Mileage member but I am a Virgin Elevate member. Several months back I read with interest that Virgin Elevate was offering 500 points to new members with no strings attached. I simply had to be assigned an Elevate number and answer a few questions, and Voila, 500 points. I’m never one to pass up on free points no matter what the loyalty program. I may not be an active user of that particular program at that time, but in the future I expect to dabble in all programs. After a couple more Elevate incentives over the next two months I had a grand total of 1500 Elevate points! Pretty sure that won’t get me anywhere but points is points.
Fast forward to the merger of these two programs and the fact that I had signed up for those measly 500 points through Elevate and the invite appears. All I had to do was activate my new Alaska Airlines Mileage account and be a member of the Elevate program since December 5. My member number had been auto-generated and after a quick visit to my membership page, the bonus offer appeared with the “Thanks for Joining Mileage Plan” verbiage. After logging out of the system and logging back in, I looked to see if the 10,000 points had posted. Sure enough, the points were there.
I can’t say for sure that others will receive this great free offer simply for being an Elevate member, but it certainly appears that this could be the case. I’m waiting to see if my wife also receives the same offer as I approached the Virgin offer the exact same way for her new account as well. It just goes to show that you should always take advantage of the free point offers even if you have very little reason to join the program. The benefits outweigh the insignificant amount of time I spent signing up for Elevate. These 10,000 points certainly give me an extra incentive to sign up for the BofA Alaska Airlines Visa that I’ve eyeballed for some time. Suffice to say, free points certainly equals a good day in the point collecting world.
That stinks honestly. The more I’ve read up on this the more caveats seem to be involved. The most activity I’ve had is a total of 3 promotions that equaled 1500 points over the last 4 or 5 months in Elevate. My wife just received the offer yesterday as well and has the same activity as myself. Confirmed 10,000 today. Hope others have the same luck.
I am a member of both Elevate and Mileage Plan, but did not receive points. I contacted Alaska Airlines and they said that if there is no activity in the Elevate program, you will not get the 10K miles. : (