With Starwood points transfers at 1:1 probably too good a deal to begin with — other currencies transferring to Virgin America usually offered just half the value at 2:1 — and with Alaska Airlines’ acquisition of Virgin America which has already led to the announced end to Citibank transfers to the Elevate program, it sure raised alarm bells when Virgin America transfers disappeared from the Starwood website.
Starwood points have transferred 1:1 into Virgin America. 20,000 Starwood points yield 25,000 Virgin America points. And a 30% conversion bonus, given Alaska’s purchase of Virgin America, will mean 32,500 Alaska miles.
That was the theory anyway, and it was an opportunity which was available briefly.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
La Quinta Returns has a new feature that lets you use your points to buy pretty much anything at retail. And they’ll give you points for signing up for the feature, which amounts to free money.
Flyertalk member rwoman reported being on the flight from London Heathrow to New York JFK that self-described ‘professional idiot’ Adam Saleh claimed he was kicked off of for speaking Arabic. And she disputes his version of events.
Effective January 1 IHG Rewards Club says they’re introducing a late check-out benefit for all elites (Gold and higher).
This morning a man named Adam Saleh was about to fly Delta but was kicked off the plane, allegedly because he spoke Arabic on the phone and also to a traveling companion. He filmed the incident, and it’s going viral (over 50,000 shares in the first 2 hours). He mentions on the video that he’s even a SkyMiles member.
Back in 2013 Hilton substantially raised points prices and changed the way they price within categories.
They no longer shift hotels across categories once a year, either. Instead they make the changes quarterly and they would just post them on a web page. (Savvy members can create a change detection for the page (like I do).)
Two Alaska Airlines planes were struck by lightning on Monday in Alaska and taken out of service for routing inspections.
While on average it’s said that every commercial plane is struck by lightning at least once a year, I believe it’s been over 40 years since a crash has been attributed to a lightning strike. The fuselage of a plane will conduct electricity and allow it to trasmit from the strike and generally out the tail.
I’m done with my travels for the year. I’ve requalified as an American Airlines Executive Platinum member (100,000+ miles, I actually hit this back in mid-June) and I hit United Silver but not quite Gold. I’ve flown paid trips on Delta, Southwest, and Virgin America as well (not to mention China Eastern, flydubai, and Maldivian).
Within moments of my 100th night posting to my Starwood account, I received an email welcoming me to the Ambassador program:
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
