Good morning everyone, happy Sunday!  I wanted to quickly thank everyone who braved the 100+ degree weather in Sacramento to attend my Sacramento Travel Hackers Meetup at In-N-Out yesterday.  It was great talking to you about miles and points.  I look forward to returning when the weather cools down a little bit.  A few weeks ago, I needed to purchase flights from San Francisco (SFO) to Las Vegas (LAS) on Virgin America.  I needed to go to Las Vegas for a specific weekend and I bought tickets somewhat last minute, so flights were expensive.  Here was the price for 2 round trip tickets on Virgin America. I found it odd that if I purchased the flights from Virgin America or through Google, the price was $729 total, but if I bought the same flights through Alaska Airlines, the price was only $613 total.  That seemed really strange to me.

I currently have a Comenity Virgin America Premium Visa Signature Credit Card which includes a Virgin America $150 Companion Discount Code.  A few months ago, I wrote Comparing the Alaska Airlines $120 Companion Fare Code vs. Virgin America $150 Companion Discount Code.  I remembered that I still had my Virgin America $150 Companion Discount Code available that was going to expire in the next few months.  In this post, I will show you how to redeem your Virgin America $150 Companion Discount Code and provide a warning before you use your Companion Discount Code.

My Virgin America $150 Companion Discount Code was set to expire on September 16, 2017, so I only had a few months left to redeem the Companion Discount Code.  I copied the Companion Discount Code and went over to Virgin America’s website to book the flights.

I plugged in San Francisco (SFO) and Las Vegas (LAS) into the Virgin America website and clicked the Search Flights button.

I selected my outbound and inbound travel dates from the calendar and clicked the Continue button.

Before selecting my flights, I clicked the Promo Code button.

I pasted the Companion Discount Code into text field and clicked the Enter A Promo Code button.

With the Companion Discount Code entered, I selected my outbound and inbound flights.

To make sure the Companion Discount Code was being applied, I selected the same flights, once with the standard price and the other using the Companion Discount Code.  The standard price was $688.80 and the Companion Discount Code price was $527.56, a savings of $161.24.

Before I booked the flight with the Virgin America $150 Companion Fare Discount, I decided to double check to make sure I was getting the best price, so I went to the Visa Infinite Discount Air Benefits page.  If you book travel on the Visa Infinite Discount Air Benefits page, you can get $100 off round trip domestic flights for 2 or more people (thanks to my JPMorgan Chase Ritz Carlton Visa Infinite Credit Card).  I plugged in my outbound and inbound travel dates and clicked the Search Flights button.

With the $100 Visa Infinite discount, the price was $512.80, which was $14.76 cheaper than using the Virgin America $150 Companion Discount Code.

I was convinced that the Visa Infinite Discount Air Benefits page had the best price, but for completeness, I wanted to triple check and see if the Alaska Airlines Companion Fare Code would be even cheaper.  The Alaska Airlines Companion Fare Code allows you to purchase a ticket at full price and bring a companion for ~$120, regardless of the actual cost of the ticket.  Alaska Airlines is currently running a promotion if you get approved for a new Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa Signature Credit Card, your companion only pays the taxes and fees, so the companion ticket might be less than $30.  I have an “old” Alaska Airlines Companion Fare Code, so the price is ~$120 for my companion.  I entered my travel cities, outbound and inbound travel dates, and my Alaska Airlines Companion Fare Code, then clicked the Find Flights button.

Since you can now redeem your Alaska Airlines Companion Fare Code for Virgin America flights, I selected the same Virgin America flights as before and clicked the Add to Cart button.

To my surprise again, the price was $441.24, which was $71.56 cheaper than the Visa Infinite Discount Air Benefits price and $86.32 cheaper than using the Virgin America $150 Companion Discount Code.

I decided to book the Virgin America flights using the Alaska Airlines Companion Fare Code instead of using the Virgin America $150 Companion Discount Code.  If you have the Virgin America $150 Companion Discount Code, double and triple check that you are getting the cheapest option before booking.  If you have any questions about the Virgin America $150 Companion Discount Code or the Alaska Airlines Companion Fare Code, please leave a comment below.  Have a great Sunday everyone!

P.S. I am not sure what will happen to the Comenity Virgin America Premium Visa Signature Credit Card after the Alaska Airlines / Virgin America merger is complete.  My guess is that the Comenity Virgin America Premium Visa Signature Credit Card will convert into a Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa Signature Credit Card, but that is still to be determined.