StaggaLee

Now that Elevate is going away, I'm looking for a new program where I can earns status based on total spend and not from how often I fly. Elevate offered this but its my understanding that Alaska does not? Can anyone recommend a program similar to Elevate where it's easy to get status from credit card spend?

sfozrhfco

There are not any great options for only using credit card spend. The JetBlue Mastercard gives Mosaic status after $50,000 in spend.

Delta would only get you silver status unless you get multiple cards and charge lots of money to them.

https://thepointsguy.com/2017/10/ear...ithout-flying/

Southwest only gives 1,500 tier points for $10,000 in spend up to 15,000 tier points which gets you basically nothing but a few points.

acarney

It sounds like by the second year you COULD have Gold status with the Reserve Delta card since I guess Delta allows you to roll over a % of your previous years MQMs... Looks like you would need to be spending $60k+ a year on the card for Silver the first year and Gold the second and onward. Plus of course whatever you fly...

Citi has the AAdvantage Executive World Elite MasterCard which gets you 10k EQM after $40k in spend, but that's a little less then half way to Gold (their lowest level). So you would have to spend $80k across a biz and personal version each year and still be a little short of Gold status AND you might still need to do the $3k spend on American each year...

Those are the only two that I know help you toward status...

If you don't fly all that often but instead spend a lot, maybe get a Chase Sapphire Reserve or Amex Plat card and just use the points to redeem for award flights for big ticket international First/Biz class, or use Chase's $0.015/pt on the travel portal to purchase domestic first class tickets. $60k spend on the Chase card (with zero bonus points, so no spend on travel [flights or hotels, etc] or dining) would get you roughly ~$900 in airfare which would probably be good for at least one roundtrip transcon first on Alaska and maybe two on Alaska or Delta if you're flying like LAX to SEA. Amex the points are worth less but you usually have more options to transfer the points directly to other programs and redeem for miles, which might be a better deal when looking at an international ticket that might be like $5,000 or something. If you're spending $100k+ a year then you're probably going to be getting close to a roundtrip international Biz ticket anywhere you want every year with Amex or Chase or like $1,500 to spend on the Chase travel portal if you put all the spend just on the Chase card. And of course the Chase has $300/year travel credit which could help make domestic F tickets affordable or international upgrades to a premium economy or something. (Amex has $200/year but it is much harder to use to purchase tickets, I think it's easy to get that credit to cover seat upgrades though).

Plus, if you purchase and fly F on Alaska you might also be able to get close to the lowest level of status with just a few F tickets a year... that wouldn't get you much perks but it would allow you to start to really rack up the miles. Purchased F + MVP usually results in like 225% mile earning which can get you rewards tickets a lot faster. SEA to LAX and back results in ~4,000 miles earned :P

caseminole

United Presidential Plus MC does this, however, I am not sure that it is offered as a new product (you may want to check)

1000 PEQM for every $5,000 in spend

sbm12

DL's rollover is only the MQMs above whatever tier you hit. So if you have 30k you start the next year with 5k. If you have 20k you start the next year with 0.

Baze

acarney

jiburi

Also keep in mind, United's program has instituted a minimum qualification for status
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Jiburi

GrayAnderson

To be fair, VX effectively only offered Silver without flying them. For Gold you still had a substantial spend requirement (effectively $7k, though there were some oddball promotions that reduced this once in a while).

mikeysf

VX Gold refugee who started down this route about this time last year. Saw the writing on the wall, and while I kept my travel on VX, I moved my card spend somewhere I could build status.

I ended up getting the JetBlue card and earned Mosaic. Just got back from my first trip with status. I never flew JetBlue all that much, here are the main things you will notice coming from dearly departed Virgin:

• Change fees: Mosaic gets you free changes and cancellations. Number 1 benefit for me personally and worth the price of admission; I change plans frequently and need to do that without penalty.
• No upgrades: Mosaic doesn't get you free upgrades, not to to Mint (their Business product, only available on some routes), not even to Even More Space (first few rows economy, like Virgin's forgotten Main Cabin Express product). Having said that, as Mosaic you will get OK-priced upgrades for Even More Space that can be paid for in cash (~$99 for transcon) or miles (~1110). Lack of a business/first upgrade is a big negative, but it's nice to be able to burn miles for upgrades -- something I would have done every time with the VX MCS First $240 upgrades were it an option.
• Soft product: Jury is out for me; was pleasant for the route I flew despite it being the oldest hard product (A320, no wifi, no power, transcon - eek). FA and gate staff recognized status and FA was generous with the beverages (free drinks is a mosaic benefit). I don't need a lot of pampering but, sample size 1, status appears to at least mean something to the staff.

I'm really not sure I want to maintain status on JetBlue yet, as I do want to give AS a shot. Will form a stronger a opinion after a few more months. Hope this helps!

VegasGambler

Not really that oddball; the promo was consistently every year at the same time (surprisingly, not a slow-travel time either -- it included Thanksgiving).

Of course if you're not going to fly AT ALL then the status is completely worthless What you really want is the ability to get status as an occasional flyer. The VX silver + CC combination was not bad -- the CC got you no-fee changes and the silver status got you complementary upgrades to MCS and opened the F upgrade window 6 hours before the status-less. And MCS -> F upgrades were cheap. Of course Gold was better, but Silver was not bad. And the CC allowed you to roll your excess status pts over to the next year, which might allow the occasional flyer to flip-flop between silver and gold, rather than being silver every year.

VegasGambler

Strongly disagree here. You get what you pay for. Giving away most of your F seats to elites for the price of coach turns F into a cost center rather than a profit center, which makes it first in line when it's time to cut costs. This is why F on VX was so good -- it wasn't free! And it's why F on the legacy carriers is an embarrassment to the term "first class".

I think that VX had the right balance. You could get cheaper F tickets by getting your free upgrade to MCS and then buying a relatively cheap upgrade to F (and having the opportunity before non-elites). So there is significant benefit to being an elite, but you still have to pay something for that F seat.

CalanMan

Worth noting that Alaska also offers free changes to all Gold and Gold 75K members. We also get free changes on flights booked for others, even without status, with our miles. I agree this is the #1 benefit for me, too, and one of the reasons I picked AS over VX as an SFO flyer when VX pivoted towards consistently charging for things like changes and booking with a phone agent ~2012, well before the merger was announced.

If I had to pick between upgrades and free changes, I'd pick changes. Alaska gives me both.

Hope you wind up super happy with whichever airline/program you decide to stick with!

ianmanka

It's not a published benefit, but I was 100% at securing Even More Space seats for free by asking a gate agent or check-in agent day-of-departure. But if you don't want to leave it to chance, you can certainly secure upgrades by paying for them.

tphuang

From the JetBlue forum, it seems like mosaic almost never get denied upgrade to EMS by GA as long as there is seat available. A320 is at the start of the upgrade program. I'm surprised you did not get wifi, since all A320 should have wifi.