Virgin America today extended its status match program for elite frequent fliers with American and United – and added Southwest Airlines. It’s a match/challenge combo, actually, where you’ll be matched outright until June 30, 2013 and offered the ability to extend your status through the end of 2013.

This extension is for new applicants as of April 2, and will not include anyone who participated in their original offering last November.

First, here’s the chart of how the American, United and Southwest elite tiers match to Elevate Silver or Gold:

Here are the benefits of Elevate Silver and Gold:

There are a couple of exceptions to the perks above in the T&Cs for those members matched. During the challenge period (now through June 30, 2013), you will not receive the 25% off discount codes, nor will you have reciprocal benefits (lounge access, primarily) on Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia that require a physical membership card. Cards will not be issued for matched members. Also, matched members will only receive one complimentary pass to the Virgin America lounge at LAX.

To have your matched status extended through the 2013 program year, you must:

It’s a nice break they’re giving for Virgin America Visa Signature cardholders, according to the chart above.

The current bonus mile offer for being approved for the credit card is 10,000 bonus points after the first purchase. You can also earn up to 5,000 additional bonus points if you transfer a balance within the first 30 days.

While they don’t have a complimentary first class upgrade program for elites, Virgin America does open up purchased upgrades earlier for Silver (12 hours) and Gold (24 hours) members. Upgrades to Main Cabin Select seats are, however, complimentary and follow the same timeframe/window. While waiting for that upgrade, elites can book Main Cabin Express seats (those near the front) at the time of booking.

Sorry Delta fliers… there’s still no match for you. American, United and Southwest elites, click here for the status match page with instructions on how to apply.

Related posts:

Virgin America Launches Status Match for American, United Elites

Flight Review: Virgin America First Class LAX to Seattle

Flight Review: Virgin Australia Business Class Sydney to Perth

Flight Review: Virgin Australia Business Class Perth to Sydney

I flew home from Las Vegas on Tuesday and needed to get back a bit earlier than my ticketed flight. Having absolutely no idea what Southwest’s standby policy was, I looked it up online before heading to the airport. As I was on a Wanna Get Away fare, standby required a buy-up to the Anytime fare – a difference of $85 in my case.

The crappy thing is that if you don’t make it on the flight, you’re still charged the fee, something rather unappealing. But since it was a Tuesday (off-peak travel day) and most people were arriving in Vegas for CES, I figured I’d have a damn good chance so I headed to the airport.

When I looked up the Anytime fare, I noticed the Business Select fare was a mere $15 more for the one-way to Reno. When I arrived at the airport, I asked instead to purchase a new ticket at the Business Select fare using the value on my original ticket as partial form of payment. And so $100 later, I had a confirmed seat – and a boarding group of A3 – for an earlier flight. Well worth the price for my need to get home four hours earlier.

The fare difference between the Wanna Get Away and Anytime fare was pretty negligible, all things considered, for the route I was flying. In some longer-distance markets, I’m sure it’s a considerable jump and it would make loyal flying on Southwest less likely if I were prone to frequently wanting standby travel having purchased the cheapest fares.

But what’s most shocking to me is they don’t provide a better standby policy for their most frequent fliers, A-List and A-List Preferred Rapid Rewards members. Maybe I’m just used to legacy airline programs and their liberal, by comparison, standby policies. Why wouldn’t Southwest throw elites a bone and allow standby on all fares? Am I missing something, or is their standby policy a bit off-putting to loyal travelers who buy the cheapest tickets?

Related posts:

A Southwest Airlines Trip Report? Yep, They Impressed Me

As being widely reported in the news and blogs this week, Southwest Airlines is launching their revised frequent flyer program on March 1, 2011. Instead of the current segment-based earning system, it will now be based on the price of your ticket, with 6 points per dollar earned for the lowest fares, and 12 points per dollar earned for the highest. Those who fly Southwest on their highest “Business Select” fares will certainly reap the greatest rewards, while those buying the lowest “Wanna Get Away” tickets will struggle to earn a meaningful amount of points. It makes sense to reward your highest paying customers, but I’m seeing more frequent examples of revenue-based programs and promotions.

This week United Airlines sent out a targeted bonus mile promotion, which could yield 15,000 redeemable miles if you fly three qualifying roundtrips by March 31, 2011. Nothing new for United, they are restricting it to the higher coach class “buckets” of fares, the lowest being Q-class. A quick example of the difference I looked at just now on a Los Angeles to Chicago route shows the lowest base fare excluding taxes for a L-fare as $221, whereas the base fare for Q is $587. That’s a significant difference for the low-fare-buyers like myself. You can bet I will not be partaking in this promotion.

American and United already have an exclusive revenue-based level in their programs (Concierge Key and Global Services respectively), which makes sense for domestic carriers with a large international network and frequent corporate travelers who drop enormous sums on full-fare tickets. My concern is for the mileage and segment-based side of the program and if they were to restrict accrual of either redeemable or elite qualifying miles to the higher fare classes. Here is the current chart of United’s buckets:

You can see there are currently 11 Discount Economy booking classes or buckets out there right now, and it has long been a concern for those who just love to fly and earn status that the carriers will restrict our earning ability at those S, T, L, K levels. While people don’t even like to bring this up on the Flyertalk boards out of fear of giving the airlines new ideas, it’s nothing new. As it stands currently, many foreign carriers already restrict accrual on the lowest fares including Air Canada, Air New Zealand, ANA and Singapore Airlines.

So with the news that even Southwest’s Rapid Rewards loyalty program is becoming exclusively focused on revenue, I am almost certain we’ll see changes in the coming years to the major carriers’ policy on discounted tickets.