Originally Posted by
ZbadhabitZ
For me, and this is my own opinion, I found elevate to be pretty beneficial. I've only flown VX on the LAX-SFO/SFO-LAX trip, which I'm usually able to snag for around $120ish roundtrip. If I pick a good date, I can usually use 2,500 elevate points each way, which means after only 4 trips, I already have one-way taken care of for my next. I find this to be a pretty comparable deal to say WN, which requires me to fly 8 roundtrips to qualify for a free roundtrip ticket.
Plus with my new VX Visa, my monthly spend is pretty much ensuring me enough elevate points for another one-way ticket. If you fly VX for longer trips, this probably doesn't apply, but so far, I'm really happy with elevate.
EleVAte is not a horrible program for everyone - it is almost competitive with WN's program for short-haul flights. It's certainly competitive with the Jet Blue and Frontier programs, though the 18 month expiration means it is still inferior to those two programs. However, it is vastly inferior to all of the legacy programs when talking about long-haul flights, particularly for people who buy premium cabins.
There are many great things about VX but eleVAte is not one of them.