A mong the items of the vision for the future of Alaska Airlines and Virgin America which was shared on Wednesday, March 22, 2017 was that the Virgin America name will cease to exist sometime in the year 2019 and the combined entity will simply be known as Alaska Airlines.
Date Announced For End of Virgin America Elevate Program
Although exactly when the Virgin America name will be dropped was somewhat vague, the date of the end of the Virgin America Elevate frequent flier loyalty program is rather clear: Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan will become the sole frequent flier loyalty program as of Monday, January 1, 2018.
Your Elevate points are safe and will transfer automatically into Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan in early 2018; but if you convert your Elevate points to Mileage Plan miles now, you can score a points conversion bonus of 30 percent — which means that you will receive 1.3 Mileage Plan miles for every Elevate point you convert.
Summary
This ending of the Virgin America Elevate frequent flier loyalty program is part of the continued integration with Alaska Airlines, which announced the acquisition of the airline almost one year ago and was approved by the Department of Justice of the United States on Tuesday, December 6, 2016.
Although the two airlines will adopt the name and logo of Alaska Airlines — whose refreshed branding was unveiled back in January of 2016 — the combined airline will adopt many of the brand elements of Virgin America.
The combination of the airline may not occur completely smoothly: according to this article written by David Koenig of the Associated Press, Richard Branson — who helped to create Virgin America — “told reporters in Seattle this week that Alaska must pay royalties for the Virgin name under a licensing deal that runs until 2040.”
Interesting times may yet be ahead…
Photograph ©2016 by Brian Cohen.
