Elevate redemption has arrived!
 

October's here...as of this morning, the new Elevate upgrades to the website are live. Can now select 'display as points / dollars' in the Book a Flight section of the site.

The important info:

Minimum point spend for transcon is 6,930 each way Main Cabin, and 48,558 points each way for First.

Short haul trips start at 2,279 Main Cabin each way, and 9,721 points each way for First.

Seattle to LA clocks in at 3,674 Main, and 12,512 First each way.

More details: Points go up on a graduating scale as the availability goes down, in the same way as fares. (i.e., transcon main cabin $149 fare equals 6,930 pts; when the fare goes up to $209, the points needed to redeem goes to 9,721) You can mix and match, by purchasing as separate one way tickets. You can use points to purchase for other people, but points are not transferable. You can upgrade a points ticket the same as a purchased ticket within the 24 hour window before flight. Changes and cancellations are subject to a $75 redeposit fee per itinerary, per guest on Main Cabin fares, after the first 24 hours. First and Main Cabin Select are not subject to change/cancellation fees. (Which also says something about future purchased MCS fares.) Still no elite status, aside from Founding membership, which has a new logo. No capacity controls or blackouts. Credit card (coming soon - if we still have credit in general :rolleyes:) will be a no annual fee Virgin America Visa Signature. (What's been released so far: Earn should be normal 5 points per dollar on tickets, plus 3 points per dollar on VX tickets/on-board/Red, and 1 to 1 for everyday purchases, plus bonus Elevate points for getting the card.) Everything regarding the card is still subject to change. (Phew!)

In addition to points redemption, there's also a new, expanded Elevate home page info-box and My Account section, as well as a slightly redesigned Elevate main page.

The additions to the site are still beta, as they make sure everything works properly. Note also, the (future) Enjoy Your Rewards tab of the My Account section is not the same as points rewards for seats. Partners are still not up yet, either.

Couple other items of note: eleVAte is now Elevate. No, I don't know, either. ;)

and

All points earned through Sept 30, 2008 will not expire until March 30, 2010, due to the delays.

Cool! ^ It appears that eleVAte points currently have a redeemable value of ~$0.0215

Does anyone know if VX plan to integrate eleVAte with Red sometime down the track? It'd be nice to be able to order a meal using eleVAte points :) ...and earn them for credit card purchases.

Planned, yes. When it can/will be implemented, don't know yet. Not only to earn points for on-board spend, but also to link the entertainment preferences to your Elevate number, so you can do things like customize playlists and keep them linked to your Elevate account for future travel. Right now, focus is still on making sure Red is stable before adding additional functionality.

I'm extremely disappointed that there's no way to redeem for a confirmed upgrade. I think I'm the only person in the world with enough elevate points to redeem for a F/C transcon...

Do you do any leisure travel? You could buy an F ticket for that and use the money you save to upgrade future flights.

Confirmed upgrades would be nice. Perhaps they will let you mix points and cash as the points appear to have a consistent value... being able to use points for a 24 hour upgrade would be nice as well.

I understand how you feel. The program looks to be a hybrid FF program, modeled in most part like the other LCC FF programs, though, where points are given - in this case, based on fare - and then can be used for (free) flight "purchase" in return. I know SW and B6 don't have a F cabin to upgrade too, but I also consider VX doesn't have that many F seats to deal with, and in many cases, a lot of the F cabins go out near full. Possibly they think the upgrade program is a good compromise for not offering confirmed upgrades using points. Or maybe they'll add it based on feedback. Also, VX does have a habit of separating out fares from everything else, ie, fees/upgrades, which might factor into why the program is concentrated - for the moment - on fares only. Send an e-mail re: upgrades, and give it a little time. They're going to shake out the program for a bit and see what works and what doesn't. Plus, we'll see additions to it as it gets going and partners are added. The Elevate management is actively soliciting feedback via the link on the My Account page.

And yes, I think you ARE one of the few who has all the points... ;)

I think that the way they've structured the program, they would "make" more money by having people use points than having them use dollars (at a given dollar cost for a ticket). The economics of FF points is complicated, and I don't pretend to understand it. However, if they have to keep points on their books at some value (liability), then it's to their advantage to have them used. I think they should have a points+cash option for first class tickets, and I suggest that everyone who agrees should let them know.

I agree. Do you have the feedback link handy?

I also would love a "purchase first class on day of flight" option.

I wonder why they changed from eleVAte to elevate "its' different up here"

I liked how VA stood out in the name of the loyalty program.

--Russ

Like has been said before, Rapid Rewards with mood lighting.

Well, eventually they'll add international carriers to it, and it'll be better- though I suspect it will never have the sweet, sweet opportunities to cash in using milage runs, like old-school legacy programs do.

I've been playing with the site and like the toggle between paying with points or cash. Looks good so far. I just wish VX has this in place a long time ago, to build even more loyalty.

This doesn't seem like such a good deal at all. The yield is a bit over 10% based on dollar spend, right? That doesn't seem so bad for short-haul reward redemption, but for the premium cabin on the transcons it pretty much sucks. A $10,000 spend to redeem for the cheapest one-way F seat on a transcon is pretty bad. Compared to a traditional program the top end rewards are still pretty out of the ball park in terms of the competitive landscape.

http://www.wanderingaramean.com/2008...ion-rates.html

Good article. It's good to see the math, compared with legacies. Cash+Points would be really helpful!

Well, yeah. That's sort of what I've been driving at in the forum: VX transcon F is going to be priced low compared to the legacies, comparatively speaking, but they just aren't going to give it away, period, unlike the legacies- it's cash on the drumhead or back to Y with you. From everything I've seen, VX really, REALLY does not want the "upgrade party" other airlines have had in their F product as a result of FF programs and elite status, which has really downgraded the quality of the F product they offer (go look at the UA forums for many, many examples of that).

Whether or not that's advisable or something they'll have to abandon is up in the air, but it certainly seems to be their approach, and I think they may have a point- market your luxury product to people who can afford it at a consistent price point that maximizes return, instead of charging a great deal more to some people so you can give it away to other people.

I do wonder, though- can you use cash to do a day-of-flight F upgrade on an award ticket in Y? That would SORT of be what you're asking for (though on the popular VX's transcon routes, F tends to sell out, so it's less than what you'd want, ideally).

According to articos (at the beginning of this thread), yes.

Well, there you go: cash and points. :p

FWIW, I don't think you can do this on other airlines (could be wrong, though)- I'm pretty sure you can't pay the upgrade fee on a coach award ticket on Alaska, for instance. It's actually not a bad idea- might as well get SOMETHING for that F seat, and on a round-trip transcon, that's $500 of revenue + removing the liability of the points.

True, but I insist on a *confirmed* F seat, so this method doesn't work for me.

So if you can afford to pay for the F flights you have to fly 50 of them to earn enough to redeem for a F reward. That's obscene. A typical legacy program would get you a transcon F r/t reward with 10 transcons flown, or 20 flown if you go for an unrestricted reward. And that isn't taking in to account the elite bonuses that you'd have if you flew 20 transcon segments.

Agreed, it's takes about twice as much flying at the current rate (for unrestricted, which VX rewards are). The FF program was never a deal changer for me either way for VX. The product is compelling enough that I don't care, and I earn enough points from my credit card for the leisure transcon flying that I do. The question is if people who have been "waiting in the wings" before switching to VX will find this offering enough to switch.

By the way, the $.0215 value per point is *not published anywhere*. It's just via looking at the current point cost (today) that we can arrive at that figure. It wouldn't take much to change it in either direction, and they certainly wouldn't need to give us any notice. You'd just go to purchase a ticket one day, and instead of X points for the seat, it would be Y points.

So's paying 5-10K for UA p.s. F on the same routes R/T, I might argue, when you can pay half or a quarter of that on VX and get what is arguably a better experience.

Now, as has been pointed out, FF mileage bonuses and elite perks are an important side benefit and incentive that make a lot of FTers go "no way am I going to fly VX on the company dime, when I can fly UA or AA on the company dime and score TATL F or C a couple times a year". I'm not arguing that- that's only sensible way to look at it, if it's not YOUR dime, but they are your FF miles (unless you want to argue that your responsibility to your employer involves booking a cheaper flight and taking the hit in FF mileage accumulation- but maybe getting FF benefits is an important morale booster if you're going to be spending a lot of your life in planes for your employer as well.)

I think, though, that VX has decided that they want to charge a fairly uniform and comparatively low price for the front of the cabin, rather than give half of it away for free or cheap to elite and frequent fliers and soak the other half, and take the hit and see if it works- similar to how WN decided to scrap complicated pricing schemes in Y. I think it's a worthwhile experiment, even if it is unlikely to appeal to most FTers who love their complimentary TATL/TPAC C or F vacations every year.

Indeed. VX just went from having no frequent flyer program to having one that is pretty much useless for nearly all business travelers. I guess VX figures Airtran needs the competition.

new web site address?
 

I don't see any option to book using elevate points at www.virginamerica.com. Is there a different address for the beta site?

It's in the regular booking engine. Look above the city selection and it should give you an option to display in points rather than dollars.

Couple thoughts:

Thinking about it from VX's point of view, they seem to be looking at F differently than the legacies. I agree the F points values are not in line with normal FF programs, but VX treats F differently across the board. They want people to pay for the seats, and they've priced them much lower than the competing products. People *do* pay for the seats, or they upgrade to them and still end up paying for the upgrade. That's the long and short of it. Maybe they'll revise the points values downward later on, but for now, I think they're focused on keeping F paid (even if in upgrade form), and letting the award seats come from the Main buckets. I'm sure they don't want to get into the upgrade party game with only 8 seats in the cabin.

I agree with possibly adding a using points in lieu of the upgrade fee for a day of upgrade or a confirmed upgrade on a paid main cabin tix. Maybe they'll add these, or maybe they want to keep that a paid fee product - regardless, should send a request for that via the link on the My Account page. There is a specific FAQ up that covers one of them, so they did consider it, and it's a no at this time, but that could always change. It seems for now they want to concentrate on just the tickets themselves, as opposed to the upgrades, etc. for the FF rewards points.

Cash on day of, you can do. No, I don't know of any other carrier that allows you to upgrade an award ticket. This is good for everyone, I think - you get to use a relatively small amount of points for Main cabin (imo, the main cabin point values are pretty good, esp on the short runs), VX still makes some revenue on the upgrade fees, and you get to enjoy F. Not a bad deal to me, as long as the upgrade fees don't keep going up.

(If you want it from the horse's mouth: http://virginamerica.custhelp.com/cg...i=&p_topview=1

As far as business travelers, maybe they'll lose some corporate flyers who use the legacies to gain trips from business travel, but I honestly don't think they're at a lack. VX F has quietly gained a following through many of the silicon valley, entertainment and finance communities, which is natural, considering San Francisco/San Jose, Los Angeles and NYC. Most of the transcons I've been on go out half to full (more full than anything else). The people I know who fly VX F preferentially do so and pay for it without blinking, because they're used to paying 10k on AA or UAp.s., and they're not looking at the FF perks. It's cheaper to buy it than use points, and that's most likely on purpose.

Don't forget though, also, this is just the beginning of the program. There's a lot more to come, and supposedly a lot more uses for the points. Let everything shake out.

My guess is that over time, we will see some adjustments in redemption and earning, but I echo the comments that VX wants to focus on the product/experience rather than have the FF program drive everything. If your motivation to fly is for that eventual ticket to Hawaii then UA might be a better airline for you.

I can see bonus points on high $ fares and reduced point awards when load factors are low now and then.

Why can't VX be both the best quality product and have a strong frequent flyer program? The two items are not mutually exclusive.

I'm not saying they can't, but redemption does not appear to be the strength or quality feature of the program. I'm merely guessing as the program develops they will focus on cool perks, partners, etc. to add value to the program that is complementary to the onboard experience.

VX is so smart to tie the redemption cost to the cost of a ticket... so much so it makes me mad the legacies have set up this awful inflexible system of all or nothing.

With the 2x (or in DLs case some higher multiple) options, which carrier really has a "nothing" option these days? In reality, most of those programs actually have better values on their points, even on those "rich" seats. Assuming a cost of acquiring the points at about a penny each (which is a commonly used number), cashing in 250K points for a J reward to Europe is a pretty reasonable $2500 spend investment. Way better than VX's $50K$10K spend for the cheapest transcon option. Even at 2cpm that same reward for $5K in spend is probably less than the ticket would cost to buy for cash. And if the standard reward is available then you get those rewards for a much lower spend. There is a tremendous upside potential in the legacy programs if you look at it from a straight financial perspective.

Is my math wrong or does a free RT SFO-JFK ticket in F really require nearly $20,000 in spend? On almost every other airline $20,000 in spend could theoretically earn enough miles multiple transoceanic flights in F or J (assuming $500-$1000 transcons and 100% RDM bonuses). VX is probably better off adopting something that doesn't allow that kind of redemption but the position it is now taking is certainly extreme.

My calculations make eleVAte awards appear MUCH better value than MP awards when you are talking straight miles/$ -> award ratio. Especially when you compare the cost of flying on either airline and especially when you take into account the overall experience.

I attempted to do an apples to apples comparison, so I did not include upgrades and had to use standard awards on UA as VX do not apply blackout dates and waitlisting. To compare to a saver award, divide the UA miles required etc by 2. Also, I used a return itinerary as a one-way would disadvantage UA greatly. I also did not include elite earning bonuses as eleVAte does not have elite status levels and the cost of achieving elite status is difficult to quantify when there are so many possibilities.

For these calculations I used SFO->JFK on 1/14 and JFK->SFO on 1/21.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

$ cost to fly this route (return):

Y (Main Cabin / Discount Economy), F (First Class)
VX: $418, $1948
UA: $529, $5449

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points/miles earned:

Y, F
VX: 2090, 9740
UA: 5172, 7758

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points/miles required:

Y, F
VX: 19441, 90604
UA: 50000, 120000

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$ spend required for these points/miles (VX: 5 points per $ spent, $0.0215 redemption value):

Y, F
VX: $3888, $18120
UA: $5104, $84187
UA*: $4618, $57105

*adjusted values for elite earning bonus (elite statuses will be achieved whilst completing flights from 'new' member status)
---------------------------------------------------------------------

# flights required to achieve this award

Y, F
VX: 9.3, 9.3
UA: 9.65, 15.45
UA*: 8.73, 10.48

*adjusted values for elite earning bonus (elite statuses will be achieved whilst completing flights from 'new' member status)
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Let me know if I have made any errors, have not been objective enough in my investigation or you believe this comparison is unfair.

There are many problems with your post, but here are two:

First, there is no comparison between "cabin select" and UA PS C. One is coach and the other is business.

Second, it only requires 45,000 miles to redeem in PS C; not 90,000. A 1P or 1K flying paid PS C earns about 12,500 RDMs per round trip (15,000 in F), so a UA flyer earns a free business class ticket every four round trips in C or $8,000 if you are buying it at a discount. A 1k or 1P flying coach will get a free ticket after five round trips, which can be had for as low as $2,000.

The experience is likely to be better on VX but UA has a much better schedule for business travel. Plus, on UA, you can get a free international business or first class award (an $8,000 to $14,000 value) if you don't want to redeem domestically, something that is completely unavailable on VX.

So the issue for the business traveler becomes: is the VX F experience so much better than UA PS C or F so as to justify foregoing an annual $8-$14,000 benefit? UA service is pretty bad right now so it may be, but UA isn't the only competition offering this benefit that VX has decided to ignore.

The most obvious error I see is that the "earning" you have for UA reflects a O/W earn for a R/T ticket, so your numbers are all off by a factor of 2x. Plus the assumption that one will have to redeem at the 2x level rather than the discount/standard/whatever level sets a bias against the traditional program. That is not a situation where all passengers will have to go one way or another.

I did have one miscalculation in my numbers from before in that the spend for the ~50K points needed for a O/W VX F redemption is $10K, not $50K, so that clearly puts a lot of my number WAY off. Whoopsie. In my defense, I did get it right up in my initial reply on the thread (post #13).

Still, the spend is a fixed $20K minimum to get the R/T F reward. To get sufficient miles on a legacy carrier can happen for much less money (50K reward = ~$5K spend).

And ignoring elite bonuses doesn't make any sense just because VX doesn't offer such a benefit. Why should MP's value be diminished because of something that VX doesn't offer??

Also, because VX's points expire at 18 months regardless of other activity, the only people who will have enough points to redeem an F award are those who fly enough to achieve elite status on other airlines. The 18 month expiration date combined with the $20,000 spend requirement means that VX F awards are not available to more than 99% of the flying public. At least on the legacies you can spend several years saving up for an occasional nice experience.

True, until the credit card comes out...

eleVAte is a close match to Virgin Blue's Velocity Rewards. You may want to check out that program to see what may be next for VX ;)

As a matter of fact... :)

Exactly, EC and Kiwi.

Everyone's naturally comparing the program to the legacy FF programs that are continually being devalued, and I'm not sure that's the right idea. The VX program isn't trying to be an easy source of free first class travel, and I think people are expecting it to be. They'd rather sell those seats or the upgrades. In lieu of that, the program does make main cabin points travel competitive, however, and you have the ability to upgrade those relatively cheaply based on availability, which is something you can't do on the legacies. Keep in mind the intent of the program is to offer more than just points for flights. The 'Enjoy your Rewards' section, the possibilities of using points for on-board spend plus international parters that haven't been announced are all unknowns in this program that will make for something better still to come.

While these points are mostly valid, the fact is that the legacy FF programs are all there is to compare it to. I guess we could compare it to TrueBlue and Rapid Rewards, too, but I'm not really up for doing the math on those. Otherwise, what are we supposed to compare it to? If the loyalty scheme is part of the "value" of choosing a carrier - and I think it is for everyone on FlyerTalk - then one has to be able to compare between the various programs to determine their relative values.

In every loyalty scheme I've seen there is a "prime" redemption track, the one with the best value for the points. For travel programs that is inevitably travel rewards in that program. No one collects airline points for the magazine subscriptions. Even the SPG => Airline transfer is generally a devaluation of the SPG points. And betting on future partners seems like a very big gamble when deciding today how to accrue and bank credits for travel.

Yes, they make Y rewards reasonably cheap to get at. The 10% yield at that level actually isn't terrible. But anyone flying with the goal of just redeeming for another cheap, short trip isn't trying hard enough. There are bigger and better things to be had. I get that VX wants to sell their F seats. I don't blame them, as they need every penny they can scrounge up (just like every other airline). But that doesn't make it a better program to earn in.

As for upgrades on Y rewards, NW still does that for their elites, but I expect that will end with the DL merger.