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Down to the Wire: Re-qualifying for Alaska MVPG75

Alaska Airlines Plane

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It was a photo finish

At the end of 2016 I status matched my AA Executive Platinum Status to Alaska’s MVPG75. I valued Alaska’s miles and program much more than AA’s, and had been pleased with their communication regarding the Virgin America merger. When I matched, Alaska had standing partnerships with Delta and AA, and I figured hitting status wouldn’t be too difficult. Little did I know, Delta and Alaska would end their partnership in April, and AA’s earning chart would be gutted mid-year. Ouch. I had to re-strategize my entire year, which included giving up on any level of American status ( More on that ) and with a bit of luck, I just got notice I hit MVPG75. My last 3 flights of the year posted today ( Dec 27th, 30th, and 31st) , and I cleared by roughly 2000 Elite miles.

I really didn’t know if I was going to be able to squeeze it out, but I’m very happy I did.

The 50k bonus posted immediately:

a white rectangular box with black text

As did my lounge passes:

a screenshot of a computer

I now have 12 companion upgrades.

This could be a good thing to do as a giveaway sometime this year. Stay tuned.

a screenshot of a computer

I’ll have to figure out who to nominate for MVP status

Another perk of MVPG75 is the ability to nominate someone for MVP status. A very cool perk.

This year:

I will put the bulk of my flights on Virgin and Alaska domestically, even if this requires a layover, or marginally more money. I just value the miles that much. I’m interested to see how upgrades start to work on Virgin America as the year continues. My hope is that by mid-year I’ll start receiving first class upgrades on Virgin metal.

I’ll also continue to choose international partners that earn huge promotional bonuses. Hopefully these continue for 2018 as Alaska and Virgin finalize their merger. Flying BA, crediting to Alaska, and upgrading with Avios has been a great way to earn a ton of Alaska miles and fly in great comfort.  I’m interested to see who Alaska strikes partnerships with to Europe as they lost KLM/Air France ( Maybe Aer Lingus?).

What I’ll do regarding One World/ AA status.

My strategy involves 2 things. Hitting One World Sapphire via BA which will give me lounge access when flying domestically on AA, as well as access to Main Cabin Extra seating, etc.  My loyalty year is May to May, so I run the risk of having no status on AA until June. I have a trip I’m planning at the end of May which should earn me 600 Tier points, and thus, 2 years of One World Sapphire. I’d be happy with that, but the trip could fall through if dates don’t end up working.

The other option is an AA Platinum status challenge. AA has recently given out status to many members, but the status challenge is still available to everyone. Since I carry no status at all, I’m eligible. Had I earned AA Gold I couldn’t challenge for Platinum, a weird preclusion that values non-elites more than lower tier elites, and incentivized me to avoid AA flights to drop from Executive Platinum to nothing at all.

I’m going to wait and see. Since I’ll be traveling far more on Alaska flights, I’m not too concerned about not having AA perks and privileges. In the past, there have been targeted offers for former Executive Platinums to regain status through a challenge, and most times it’s several months after status has been lost. If this happens, especially post July, I’d go for it as it would secure status through Jan, 2020. If not…my goal is to gain One World status via BA and enjoy lounge benefits, etc.

My $700 upgrade to BA First made the difference.

In September, I paid quite bit of money to fly from LA to London on BA first. It ended up crediting as a first class flight and gave me a bonus 5456 Elite miles. I’d toiled over the decision all year.  As a blogger it was worth the upgrade to review the product and experience BA’s flagship cabin on their flagship plane. But, I ended up flying BA first again, prior to the end of the year, on the 747, in the nose, and that was super cool. Until I re-qualified, I was having a bit of buyer’s remorse.  Was the $700 worth it in the end? Absolutely. It pushed me over the threshold for MVPG75. That’s impulse decision making 🙂

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17 Comments

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  • […] I wrote a post about re-qualifying for Alaska Airlines top tier MVPG75.  One complaint I’d read about, and then experienced first hand, was the ill-timed status […]

  • bobman January 15, 2018

    Thanks for the post. Any sense when Alaska will be upgrading on VA metal? Also, do we know the timing of when AS plans to rip out those incredible VA first seats with redic pitch for their generally underwhelming first seat. I think it’ll be a difficult first class comp for the transcontinental flights since that represented so much of VA traffic and every other major carrier has really upped their biz/first game for coast to coast.

  • Erica T January 14, 2018

    Hey there! I also requalified for Gold 75k on a Dec 31 flight. I had five days this year where I dropped down to just Gold 🙂 Unfortunately, during that time all of my 2018 reservations were changed to Gold status. It’s been 10 days and I’m still showing as Gold 75k in the portal but Gold on the individual reservations. This put me way down on the upgrade list for my flights this weekend. I spent two hours on the phone with customer care and the sync between the mileage plan and reservation systems is taking forever due to the Alaska and VA mileage program merge at the end of the year. There is nothing they can do in the meantime so they manually checked the status of everyone ahead of me then upgraded me as I had the highest fare class/status.

    Just wanted to give you a heads up to double check your reservations!

    • Miles January 14, 2018

      Erica – Thanks for the comment! Luckily I don’t have anything booked as of yet, but I’ve heard similar horror stories as you have mentioned here. What I don’t understand is why Alaska doesn’t extend the prior year’s status for at least 4 weeks. You can’t request missing partner credit for 2 weeks, and then they say it can take 7+ days for the credit to hit your account. For members in our situation who needed flights up until the 31st, it would be highly beneficial.

      • Erica T January 23, 2018

        Update: This issue still hasn’t been fixed. It is now a “known issue” for people who reached Gold 75k beween January 4-January 8 and there is no known ETA for resolution. On today’s customer care call I was finally offered a $200 discount code, two additional guest upgrades, or 3,000 miles. I took the $200 since most of my fares don’t qualify for guest upgrades due to work policies.

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