SPG/VX Officially Toast after 6 Jan 17 per Starwood Lurker
 

Such a bummer. I utilized the SPG & VX partnership earlier this year to redeem two VS Upper Class tickets, but now all of those partnerships have officially disintegrated...

Is there any point transferring points before it goes away? My thinking is unless there's something you want to use Virgin America points for soon, no. Alaska points are valued at 1.3c each, compared to Starwood at 2.4c. So even with bonus transfer rate and the 1.3x VA to AS conversion it's not worth it (1.3c * 1.25 * 1.3 = 2.1125)

I was slightly temped to do this because of the favorable conversion rate, but ultimately chose not to because I didn't need Alaska or VX points.

After considering this for the last couple weeks I totally agree with you, transfers only makes sense if you have a ton of Starwood points and need Alaskan or VX points (and have a specific redemption in mind).

I am not sure where you get that valuation of 1.3 cents each. I would say much higher. At least 1.7 cents. In particular, note that you can get a round-trip business class ticket to Asia on Cathay Pacific on AS for 100,000 miles. That is worth more than $2,110 and you can even get one way tickets.

On Virgin America I'm able to fly on Virgin Australia round trip for 80,000 points on a flight worth $5k-$6k, so that puts VA at over 6c per point if you're doing partner redemptions.

But you're right - the first site I looked at said 1.3c, but most others say 1.7c.

I would like to use VX miles for a Hawaiian redemption in March 2017. Can't book until then. Would you guys say its a safe bet that the VX and Hawaiian partnership still be active then? I would need to transfer SPG points for this.

I would not count on HA remaining a partner. AS seems quite content with dismantling elevate as fast as it can. HA is AS's biggest competitor to the islands. They will surely want to push people to take AS rather than give revenue to a competitor.

Good point. In the past what type of notice have they given before they take away a partner?

I suspect the VX Elevate program will disappear very quickly after the Jan 9 announcement. VX-to-AS transfer will likely be one-way only. I don't think AS will keep the Elevate program around for much longer after AS publishes the award chart for redemption on VX flights on Jan 9. Otherwise, that'd be an inconsistency (and an incentive to arb) between redemption levels of the two programs.

i would not not expect any notice. AS sees that it is doing elevate members a favor to be able to join Mileage Plan. I am sure they pressured Starwood to immediately cut off transfers to Elevate and only relented with extending the deadline by a few days to avoid too much passenger push back. I would simply expect a dictate with little notice that you have to sign up for Mileage Plan and your points will be moved whether you like it or not.

How long do we have to officially join MP? Or is there a no date as of yet?

Nobody really knows what the process will be but 9 January apparently something will happen.

I suspect otherwise. It will be around through 2017, at least.

I sure wish you're right. On Jan 9, AS will publish award chart for VX flights (at FIXED mileages, I suppose). If Elevate program continues in its current form, we'll have two ways to redeem for VX flights: 1) use VX points at variable level based on ticket price; or 2) convert to AS at 1:1.3 ratio to redeem at fixed level. One surely will be better than the other. For how long will AS let us play this game?