Virgin To Alaska

I didn’t have many Virgin America points left, so I transferred all of them to Alaska miles. There’s a lot of value there now that the option is available.

Alaska continues to have valuable currency in the world of miles, so getting 1.3 for each Virgin point is worth looking at. And if you’re looking to use your Alaska account to book Virgin America flights, cross-country for 25,000 each way in First Class is one of the interesting new options available.

No need to make a transfer until you’re ready to book a flight (I just did it because I have spazoid tendencies).

Catching Up After The Weekend

  • Refresh your AwardWallet balances to see if a surprise 10,000 miles shows up in your Alaska account. Not sure why it’s there or if it’ll stay, but a bunch of you got this one (so did I).
  • Register for this Club Carlson promo and pick up some extra points for stays (actually more than just some if you have enough nights coming up).
  • Here’s a 25% bonus on transfers from Citi ThankYou to Virgin Atlantic. Ok for most. Very good for a few.

End-Of-Week Pair

  • If I had a reader with 5 American systemwide upgrades expiring at the end of next month, there wouldn’t be anything I could do about it. Not if I knew these upgrades could be purchased cheaply by other readers. You may be wondering why I wouldn’t do my part to make people happy? Because I know American’s rules about buying/selling these things. We all understand how I follow rules. No way I would ever make this type of introduction. Theoretically, of course.
  • It was a busy week so I haven’t gotten the chance to talk about my new feature for 2017…

    There have been a few suggestions over the years for things like podcasts or video posts. I never really felt the interest. But reader Kevin had an idea that got me excited. I’m going to try this one out. Because of my particular brand of whatever-you-want-to-call-it, he suggested a new series called “Dear MileNerd” would be fun for all involved. You can email any questions about random topics (relationships, sports, or whatever) and I’ll post a uniquely opinionated response on the blog. I have no idea how it will go, but I’m guessing it will be interesting. No schedule on this but not more than one post per week. Just type “Dear MileNerd” as the subject and I’ll try to get to all of them eventually. Thanks for the idea, Kevin. Have a great weekend, nerds!

Thursday Triple

  • Register for triple Avios points (at least for a few weeks) here.
  • Yeah, I’m still a fan of Southwest’s incredible cancellation policy and their hard-to-beat Companion Pass. But, man, they sucked this week. Like many of you, I woke up to an email saying I’d earned the Companion Pass again. Wrong. Oops. No pass. Hmm…after this week’s Southwest drama, we really didn’t need another reason to be annoyed by these guys. Then they finally gave what they should have from the start…a little advance notice. So now you can make those hotel transfers (including Starwood/Marriott) through the end of March and it counts towards your Companion Pass. Why did they need to piss us off to do the right thing? Who knows.
  • A couple of good sales if you book with JetBlue today or the annoying airline (Southwest) in the next 3 weeks.

Sapphire Reserve Bonus

Might want to rush those plans to figure out which family member is focusing on Chase cards. The top dog on my Top 25 list (Sapphire Reserve) is cutting their 100,000-point bonus in half next Thursday. We all knew this was a temporary promo offer and it looks like the expiration date is now set. In-branch could last a couple more months.

Have plans like this changed in the past? Of course.

But if you’re able to get this card, why wait and risk it?

(The readers who sent this information found it on a blog as reliable as a flat tire. So we’ll see.)