Earn 6 Virgin America Points Per Dollar Spent at Select Restaurants in California

A few months ago, I wrote about how you can earn airline miles from eating out at restaurants participating with the Rewards Network program.  My advice holds true and it’s a good way to earn a few rewards without much effort.  As part of that article, I briefly mentioned Mogl, a similar program that lets you earn cash back when you eat at participating restaurants.

It’s simple: you join, register a credit card with the program, eat at a participating restaurant, pay with your registered credit card, and earn 10% cash back on that purchase.  Whenever your account balance hits $10 ($100 spent at restaurants), you’ll receive a statement credit on your registered credit card.  You don’t have to remember to do anything – once you register your card(s), everything is automatic.

Mogl has just announced that you can now choose to earn Virgin America Elevate points rather than cashback if you prefer simply by updating your profile preferences and adding your Elevate number to your account.  Each $10 spent = $1 cashback = 30 Elevate points, or 3 points per dollar spent.  However, to kick off the program, you’ll earn double points through February 28 for a total of 6 points per dollar spent at participating restaurants.

Virgin America reward tickets are not based off of a standard award chart and instead each point is redeemable toward 1.6-2.2 cents worth of airfare.  That means your $10 lunch will earn $0.96-$1.32 in Elevate points, possibly more than their standard 10% cashback earnings rate depending on how you choose to redeem your points.  This could be a good way to top off your account or keep it from expiring during the promotional period, but it is a poor deal once standard earnings rate kick in rather than double points; then you’re better off earning cold hard cash.

Right now, the only restaurants participating in the Mogl program are in California (specifically Orange County, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Ventura), but if you live there or will be traveling soon, you might want to sign up for the program.  You can earn a $10 bonus for your first purchase when you sign up through my referral link (which also offers a $10 credit to me when you make a purchase – thank you!).   Just consider setting your earnings preferences back to cash after the double points period ends on February 28.