VX flights won’t count towards AS lifetime status
 

http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea....-elite-status/

Alaska is working hard to ensure that VX flyers do not move their loyalty over to AS.

As noted, VX didn't have a lifetime program and the forensic mileage accounting would have been a challenge.

It's a balancing act. VX flyers have been favored in some things, but not in this one. I think this decision was a toss-up. AS is very respectful of its MM program. My guess is they didn't want to rock that boat.

Let’s be honest. As usual they are taking the easy way out.

I think they could have worked something that would have been workable (perhaps allowing one mile per base point earned, or simply allowing X miles towards it per year of a given status; also, allowing some sort of credit for Elevate-credited flights this side of December 2016 would not have been hard). I think we can stick with calling them lazy bums.

Then again, this is so totally academic for me it isn't even funny: By the time all is said and done I'll be a DL Gold, VS Gold, and probably a BA Bronze (IT screwups for the win...I'm checking the math and it's probably going to be easier to make a run at BA Gold than at AS MVP). AS is simply always going to be "one program too many" for me.

It seems quite unfair to me.

This makes my decision on whether to continue with Alaska MP next year much easier.

I was initially torn as an SFO-based, hyper-loyal Elevate Gold since 2012.

Looks like I'll be flying the unfriendly skies to United 1K next year. :td:

I’m swimming against the tide but, even as a VX flyer, understand the AS million mile decision since it is for the actual miles flown on Alaska.

What’s important to me is that they will match the status I earned on VX in 2017 to AS for 2018.

Status match means nothing to me. One free flight on AS this year was enough for me. Only used up all my VX points this year—all on VX—and spent less than $150 on them all year with paid flights. I am done. Looks like B6 may be ramping up
LAX and BUR with some interesting adds which would make them an easy choice for me.

Quit trolling, you already decided long ago to go to Jetblue.

Another member of the AS welcome wagon. :D

Lets just put it this way, you cant lose what you never had in the first place.

You know, I do wonder how much of this is (their marketing bluster aside) a realization very early on that they couldn't win many of us over no matter what...so why bother? They did enough early on to try and at least limit how many of us were going to swear never to fly Alaska (and to avoid a major revenue hit...absorbing all of us dumping our Elevate points might have actually created a reportable item for Alaska)...but nothing more.

A lot of it is management's short term thinking. The mentality that we just need to get this merger over with and move on means that they skip over things they think will delay their process. It is a easy to spot pattern--branding, product, FF product, merging accounts. All were the easiest possible options without regard to their potential customers or the new competitive landscape they faced.

Given the very small route map VX had for most of its existence, they could have easily calculated this--even if they said we will have it done in a year. Even jetBlue which never had a mileage based program allows you to track your mileage flown through the dashboard. It is not that complicated.

No big deal. They clearly don't care about long term loyalty from VX customers which makes it easier to choose the carrier that best suits one's needs for any particular flight.

I have no idea of VX's backend, but perhaps they didn't track this data at all, so it's not even possible to do what some are asking in this thread, without submitting old boarding passes. As I'm sure everyone has their old stubs. :o

No, but I've got every email backed up, so I could produce a form of those records upon request. That might be subject to some gaming (submitting cancelled tickets), depending on how intact VX's records are, but even then allowing it with some limits on incoming mileage would be a thing...

...and let's be honest, I know there are at least a few of us who would be singing a different tune if we were going to wake up on Jan. 1 with Lifetime Gold on Alaska.