Good morning everyone, I hope your week is off to a great start. My friend Jim just told me that the dates for the Chicago Seminars have been announced and scheduled for October 14-16, 2016 (FlyerTalk thread). I love going to the Chicago Seminars and I feel like it is the best-valued travel conference available. Even though the registration link is not available yet, I already booked my flights to the event.
Virgin America has some very good prices with flights from SFO-ORD starting at around $130 each way. I love getting to Chicago early on Friday afternoon so I can catch up with old friends and meet new people before the conference kicks off later in the evening.
I should also mention that I am a recently minted Virgin America Gold Elite Member after status matching from Southwest Airlines Companion Pass and Alaska Airlines MVP Gold 75K (check out Status Matcher for more info).
Virgin America also has the same flights available for a total of 13,164 miles (5,396 + 7,768).
Since I have a ton of Citi Thank You Points, I checked out the transfer ratio for Citi Thank You Points to Virgin America miles. Currently, the ratio is 1,000 Citi Thank You Points = 500 Virgin America miles. Since I have a few hundred Virgin America miles in my account already, I only needed another 13,000 Virgin America miles. That would end up costing me 26,000 Citi Thank You Points.
Before I made the transfer, I checked to see what the cost would be to purchase the same flights using Citi Thank You Points. Surprisingly, the flights would only cost 23,398 Citi Thank You Points and I would earn Virgin America miles for the “paid” ticket. $312 / 23,398 Citi Thank You Points = 1.33 cents per point (CPP).
According to the Gold Elite benefits page:
- Elevate Gold members earn 100% more points.
- Example: Elevate Gold member books a flight for $100 base fare: $100 X 5 points per $1 spent = 500 reward points.
- Your Elevate Gold Status gets you 100% more reward points: $100 x 5 = 500 bonus points + 500 points = 1,000 total reward points
My base fare is $263 x 5 x 2 = 2,630 Virgin America miles I will earn on the flight.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. Have a great day everyone!