Note-because of the merger with Alaska Airlines, the Virgin America Elevate Program will end on January 1, 2018
When you join the Virgin America Elevate program, you are a Red member. Additionally, the program offers Silver and Gold Status. Your Elevate Silver or Elevate Gold Status is calculated daily based on the number of Elevate status points or segments you’ve earned in a calendar year, called the Qualification year. When you reach 20,000 status points or 15 segments, you achieve or retain Elevate Silver and when you reach 50,000 status points or 30 segments, you achieve or retain Elevate Gold.
Once reached, you keep your Elevate status during the initial qualification year to the end of the following full calendar year. If you had Elevate status in one year, but failed to qualify again, your Elevate Status will expire on February 28th after the end of the Elevate Status year.
For example, if you earn 20,000 status Points between August 8 and December 31 2016, you will earn Elevate Silver Status for the remainder of 2016 as well as for the full 2017 Benefit Year. If you do not re-qualify in 2017 for the 2018 Membership Benefit Year, your Elevate Silver Status will expire on February 28. 2018.
Now, I am going to focus on 3 ways in which to reach Status levels.
1. The first way is flying on Virgin America. You can earn five status points for every $1 spent on your base fare for all Virgin America flights. You can also earn status segments when you fly. Even reward flights will be counted as segments towards achieving status. The more you fly, the more status points and/or segments you earn.
2. You earn Elevate status points with Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia based on the number of miles and the class of service when you fly.
3. The third way to reach Status levels is by having a Virgin America Premium Visa Signature Card. With the card, you earn 5,000 bonus status points for every $10,000 of eligible purchases, up to a maximum of 15,000 status points per calendar year.
Click here to read about the various benefits and privileges of each level
You can read about the Elevate Silver benefits here, and the Elevate Gold benefits here. However, I want to point out the one that I deem the most beneficial….
Whether Silver or Gold, you earn bonus reward points for every Virgin America flight you purchase. Elevate Silver members earn 25% more points. So for example, if you book a flight for $100, you earn 100 X 5 points per $1 spent = 500 reward points plus 25% more reward points: $100 x 1.25 = 125 bonus points + 500 points = 625 total reward points. Elevate Gold members earn 100% more points. So that same $100 flight, you earn 100 X 5 points per $1 spent = 500 reward points plus 100% more reward points: $100 x 5 = 500 bonus points + 500 points = 1,000 total reward points!