Virgin America and AirBnb’s Latest Collaboration: Earning Virgin America points with AirBnb

Ever since Virgin America announced its new nonstops from SFO to Honolulu and Maui last spring,  a lot of flyers  had been monitoring fares for discounts and deals. And now, the partnership of Virgin America and AirBnb reportedly causes the Elevate members to earn points by booking Airbnb's across the world.

Virgin America and Airbnb have announced a partnership, which is considered by clients as extremely innovative. There are two aspects to the Airbnb & Virgin America partnership, as reported by Road Warrior Voices. First is that clients can earn 1,500 bonus Elevate points for their first Airbnb booking. Then they can also earn 20,000 bonus Elevate points if they become hosts on Airbnb after completing the first stay.

According to The Points Guy, when customers elevate points, they are directly equal to the cost of a flight. They are allegedly worth between 1.5 and 2.2 cents per point, which makes this new partnership valuable for customers of the two companies. The 20,000-point bonus for first-time Airbnb hosts is equal to between $300 and $440 to redeem for Virgin America flights.

But this is not the only partnership ever made by companies. In 2013, Hyatt and MGM paired up to offer members of both of their loyalty programs when staying with the other brand.  In early 2015, Starwood and Uber also teamed up to offer bonus Starpoints for Uber rides, as claimed by One Mile At A Time.

But beyond that, and perhaps more significantly long term, frequent flyers can earn one bonus Virgin America Elevate points for every $1 spent with Airbnb. And what's surprising clients is that there is no limit to how many bonus Elevate points they can earn. All they have to do is to go through Virgin America's Airbnb booking page every time they book the flights in order to earn bonus Elevate points.

Moreover, Virgin America Elevate points can be redeemed for around 2.2 cents each towards the cost of flights on Virgin America, or per a fixed award chart for travel on partner airlines. Regardless, customers find the worth over two cents each realistic. Getting an extra 2% return on all their Airbnb spend is purportedly pretty awesome for them too.

In the meantime, a lot of clients forego loyalty program points when booking through Airbnb. Some of them also find it pretty awesome to be able to pick up a return of approximately 2%+ in the form of Elevate points for money they'd spent with Airbnb.