In celebration of the Super Bowl, Virgin American is offering 20% off select Main Cabin fares for those that pay with a Visa card. To take advantage of this offer, just visit this page to enter your name and email address.

Once you click “Get Your Code,” the email with your code should arrive almost instantly.

When you’re ready to make your reservation, just enter the promotion code at the time you begin your search.

The promotion is valid for bookings made through February 29, for travel between January 10 and February 29, or between April 15 and June 15. The blackout dates are February 17, February 20, May 25 and May 28. Lastly, the promotion is only valid on non-refundable Main Cabin tickets in fare classes S, L, M, U, E, H, B, or V.

(Tip of the hat to Deals We Like)

Short answer: No, unless you’re just topping off an account.

I’ve received a few emails on this, so figured I’d mention it. Through December 20, 2011, Virgin America is offering a 100% bonus on purchased Elevate points. Through this promotion you can purchase Elevate points at 2.6 cents each. While the annual cap on purchased points is usually 20,000 per year, because they’re offering a 100% bonus with this promotion, that cap is really being lifted to 40,000 points.

This means that purchasing 40,000 points will cost you $1,040. So does taking advantage of this ever make sense?

Well, if you wanted to redeem your points from Los Angeles to San Francisco, for example, you have two options:

You could either pay 2,279 Elevate points:

Or spend $49:

So if you were redeeming points you would be doing so at 2.15 cents per point, about 0.45 cents per point lower than what you paid (not factoring in the points you’re missing out on by booking an award as opposed to a revenue ticket).

Now most would say it doesn’t make sense to redeem points for such a cheap ticket, though keep in mind that Virgin America’s award pricing is based on the revenue cost of the ticket, so it doesn’t matter how expensive it is, you’ll pay a proportional number of points.

For example, say you want to book a Main Cabin Select fare from Los Angeles to Boston:

You could either redeem points 41,210 Elevate points:

Or spend $886:

In this instance you would be redeeming points at… you guessed it, about 2.15 cents per point. So if you were buying those points at 2.6 cents each, that’s not much of a deal.

So unless you’re just short of the number of points required for an award, give this one a pass…

This is actually a pretty decent deal. Gilt has a sale whereby you can charter a Virgin America plane (for up to 146 people) for a roundtrip flight on any of Virgin America’s nonstop routes, plus you can name one of their planes.

The cost is $60,000, which, when you break it down, is actually pretty reasonable given how much charters usually cost. That averages out to $410 per person roundtrip, which seems like a steal for a route like New York to San Francisco, given that a) it’s a charter b) you choose the name of the plane and c) it would be pretty damn awesome.

Not sure how they’d make any money on this, though.

So, who’s up for a Virgin Mega Do?

Trip Report Index

My friend was arriving on a United Premium Service flights just minutes after my flight was scheduled to arrive. Fortunately US Airways and United both use terminal 7 at JFK, so I just waited for him at his gate. Once he arrived we took the AirTrain over to terminal 4, where our Singapore Airlines flight would be departing from.

We had about six hours before our Singapore Airlines flight and Singapore check-in wouldn’t be opening for another three hours, so we headed straight to the Virgin Clubhouse.

At JFK, Singapore Airlines uses the Virgin Clubhouse for their first and business class passengers. In theory it’s a bit disappointing flying Singapore Airlines first class and only having access to a business class lounge, though as I discovered on my trip on Virgin Atlantic back in March, Virgin’s Clubhouses are better than your average business class lounge. I was actually quite looking forward to comparing the Virgin Clubhouse in New York to the one I experienced in San Francisco a few months earlier.

In terminal 4 all of the airline lounges are located landside. For the most part this is bad news since you have to leave the lounge early to leave plenty of time for clearing security. At the same time it meant we could easily use the lounge even without boarding passes.

The good thing about the Clubhouse is that they have a list of all Singapore Airlines passengers that are eligible for lounge access, so as long as your name is on the list you don’t need a boarding pass to enter.

The lounge is located on the second level across from the check-in area, right next to the Swiss lounge.

Terminal

At the entrance we were welcomed and given a tour and explanation of the lounge, which I felt was a nice touch.

Lounge entrance

The lounge is beautiful, with plenty of areas to sit, either for lounging, working, or eating.

Dining area

Lounging area

Bar

Bar

The tarmac views were spectacular, both of the gates and the runway.

Tarmac view

My one major complaint is that the lounge itself is “open air” and not separated from the rest of the terminal, meaning you hear all the announcements and noise from the terminal.

Terminal view from lounge

My friend and I both hadn’t eaten a whole lot that day so decided to have a meal in the Clubhouse as soon as possible so that it wouldn’t interfere with our dinner on Singapore Airlines several hours later.

We sat down at a table and within moments a cheery waitress introduced herself to us and explained the menu. I ordered a Diet Coke with lime.

Menu

The menu looked fantastic, so I went with a shrimp salad, mushroom quiche, and best of all, butterscotch dessert.

“Laughing Bird” shrimp salad

Wild mushroom quiche

Tandoori chicken

Butterscotch budino

The pace of the service was great and refills were constantly offered. I would assume it’s tough to find “good help” at JFK given that they probably don’t pay their servers especially well and working in the airport as a waitress isn’t all that desirable, though the service was spectacular. I left the waitress a tip (I didn’t feel pressured to, though she was just so professional that it felt right) and my Diet Coke wasn’t once less than half full over the next several hours.

After lunch I tried to log onto the internet to get some work done, only to get this error message:

No comment…

It took a bit of help from one of the agents, though within about five minutes my internet was working just fine. Unfortunately the internet was incredibly slow, making it very tough to get any work done.

Around that time I decided to take a shower. The lounge boasts multiple spacious shower rooms featuring Bumble & Bumble products. The water pressure and temperature were also excellent.

Shower room

Overall the Clubhouse was awesome, much like the one in San Francisco. The service, food, and design of the lounge were all great. Comparing this lounge to San Francisco, I’d probably give San Francisco a slight advantage since the lounge is “enclosed,” meaning it’s much quieter and peaceful given the lack of terminal noise.

About two hours before departure we decided to head to Singapore Airlines check-in just to get a boarding pass reprint and ensure our bags were properly checked through.

Terminal 4 check-in

Singapore Airlines check-in

While there were long queues for economy, there was no one in the first class line.

First class check-in

The agent was friendly though had a puzzling expression on her face when I presented her with my handwritten baggage tag. After asking me some questions and making a few calls she assured me the bag would be checked through properly all the way to Bangkok.

Before she let us go she made us place our carry-ons on the scale. Singapore’s cabin baggage allowance is a measly 15 lbs. and suffice it to say we were both carrying substantially heavier bags. Believe it or not out of hundreds of segments in international first and business class, this was the first time I was ever asked to weigh my bag – and I’ve flown tons of airlines with very strict baggage policies.

Of course I wasn’t about to check my carry-on given how complicated the routing was, so as I placed it on the scale intentionally made it so only half of the bag was on the scale while the other half was hanging over. The agent didn’t bat an eyelash.

After that we had boarding passes in hand and decided to head to the Swiss lounge to see if they had faster wifi. Unfortunately we were only admitted to the business class lounge, though at least the wifi was faster, which is all we wanted.

The lounge was reasonably nice for a business class lounge. It wasn’t as nice as the Clubhouse and certainly wasn’t anywhere close to a first class lounge, though as far as business class lounges go, it was decent.

Swiss business class lounge

Swiss business class lounge seating

Swiss business class lounge

The lounge featured plenty of seating and a buffet with a variety of fresh items, like pasta, potatoes, fruit, desserts, etc.

Food spread

Food spread

About an hour before departure we decided to head towards security given that we were expecting long lines since many flights to Europe were leaving around the same time as our flight.

Last night I saw a pretty cool “Day in the Life of Richard Branson” show on Hulu. The reason I figured I’d share it here is because it takes place mostly at Heathrow Airport, on Virgin Atlantic planes, and at the Chicago launch for Virgin America.

Anyway, check it out (if you’re in the US, since I don’t believe Hulu can be broadcast outside the US). He seems like a pretty good guy!

I received an email from Virgin America this evening offering a 20% bonus on purchased Elevate points through May 2. I haven’t looked at the Elevate earning/burning scheme in at least a year, though I recalled that you earned points for flying based on the price of the ticket, and that redemptions were also directly tied to the cost of a ticket, unlike the legacies, which award miles based on the number of miles flown, and also have fixed award costs (saver and standard awards, for example).

So I was curious, how much can an airline really sell points for, if redemption is based on the cost of the ticket?

While buying miles is almost never a good deal, there are some cases where it can make sense, even at the “normal” cost. For example, American sells miles directly for 2.75 cents without any sort of a promotion. For most of us that’s not a good deal, though at that rate an international business class ticket to Asia, for example, would only run you $2,750. In other words, there is the potential for savings.

I was shocked to go to Virgin America’s website, only to find that their usual sale price is 5.2 cents per point. Now, I could be wrong, but by my math, there’s absolutely no way to get more than 2.5 cents of value out of a Virgin America Elevate point, no matter how creative your math is. Furthermore, by buying points towards an award ticket, you’re missing out on the points you would earn from booking a revenue ticket.

Anyway, I’m not trying to single out Virgin America here, because in most cases buying miles or points at the “normal” price is a rip off. However, there’s always that hypothetical situation where it could make sense. In the case of Virgin America, though, I’m drawing a total blank. Perhaps if you’re a few points short (and even then it’s questionable), though that’s about it.

Even worse, the cost of transferring points between accounts is two cents per point. Given that you can at most get 2.5 cents of value out of an Elevate point, I really don’t see the point there either.

Virgin America should consider cutting the cost of purchased and transferred points in half, and they might have some crazy people bite while still making a killing.

Just a quick observation…