Update (Jan 9, 2016 – 4pm Pacific): It seems like Alaska Airlines is giving out 10,000 miles to anyone who had both an Elevate account as well as Mileage Plan account on December 5th, 2016! Below is a statement from the airline:
We understand that many Mileage Plan members have questions about a surprise 10,000 mile gift that started appearing in some accounts last night, and we wanted to help put some of the mystery to rest. We can’t wait to show members of both programs what more to love looks like with Alaska Mileage Plan, and decided to kick things off with a 10,000 mile bonus award to thank our guests who have been loyal members of both Elevate and Mileage Plan. The gift process is expected to be completed over the course of next couple of days, and eligible members – which includes guests who were active in both Elevate and Mileage Plan as of December 5, 2016 – should look for an email from Mileage Plan later this week. Elevate members who don’t have a Mileage Plan account will be invited to activate one, along with details about their own special welcome offer, how to convert points, and status matching. For now, please sit tight, and we’ll be sharing more information about what members have to look forward to in the next couple of days.
The original post below ….
Late last night, my phone buzzed with an AwardWallet notification that my Alaska Airlines account balance had grown by 10,000 miles. I didn’t have any pending miles that I knew of, and the number was so round that I felt like I needed to investigate where they came from.
Scott got word of a formal promotion to reward active members of the Elevate program who were not members of Mileage Plan already. [Update: There has been an unexpected delay, but we’ll be sure to share that info once it’s available.] Alaska is making a big push to promote Mileage Plan to these new customers.
However, it’s not clear why some Alaska Airlines customers are also getting a bonus. One thing to note is that I am currently an Alaska 75K MVP Gold elite member, after matching my status from Delta last year and moving as much of my frequent flyer mile activity to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan as possible, so I have frequent activity. I searched on FlyerTalk and saw that others with elite status and activity got the same bonus, although not all.
It’s possible that Alaska Airlines realized such a promotion might leave a bad taste in the mouths of current loyal members (including members who recently used a status match 😉 ) and got ahead of that by giving some current members 10,000 bonus miles anyway. Kudos to Alaska Airlines for their foresight on that!
Don’t forget that today is also the first day you can transfer Virgin Elevate points into Alaska Airlines miles, at a ratio of 1:1.3 (i.e., 1,000 Virgin Elevate points will transfer into 1,300 Alaska Airlines miles)! Later today, we should also get more information on the Virgin America award chart using Alaska Airlines miles.
