Last week I wrote about SPG's newest airline transfer partner. You can now transfer Starpoints 1:1 to Virgin America Elevate points and get 5,000 bonus Virgin America points for every 20,000 Starpoints transferred. That's particularly amazing because Virgin America is a 2:1 transfer partner of American Express and Citi (eg 20k Membership Rewards = 10k Virgin America points.)

One of the best deals with Virgin America points is flying Virgin Australia from Los Angeles to Sydney or Brisbane.

Effective immediately, you can transfer SPG Starpoints to Virgin Elevate points at a 1:1 rate. Like all 1:1 partners of SPG, you get 5,000 bonus miles for every 20,000 points transferred, so 20,000 Starpoints equals 25,000 Virgin America points. This is 2-and-a-half times the Virgin America points that you get from competing transferable points.

Today Alaska Airlines announced it will buy Virgin America, after weeks of speculation. Alaska beat out JetBlue in the bidding.

Alaska is predicting that it will take nine months to close the deal and another year beyond that for the carriers to combine onto a single operating certificate.

To give you an idea of the relative sizes of these airlines, look at the 2015 passenger numbers for North American airlines, according to Wikipedia.

Virgin America is a minnow.

This post is part of a series about how to maximize value when transferring your Citi ThankYou Points to airline partners.

Sweetspots with Singapore KrisFlyer Miles #1: Suites Class for as Little as 32,000 Miles
Sweetspots with Singapore KrisFlyer Miles #2: Awards on United and Partner Flights
Sweetspots with Virgin Atlantic Miles #1: 10,000 Points USA to Europe
Sweetspots with Virgin Atlantic Miles #2: Sweetspots on 12 Partner Award Charts
Sweetspots with Virgin America Points: 35,000 Points Roundtrip to Europe in Flat Bed (this post)
Sweetspots with Flying Blue Miles: 30,000 Miles Roundtrip to Hawaii
Sweetspots

Through March 10, 2016, American Express is offering a 50% transfer bonus from Membership Rewards to Virgin America Elevate Points.

The normal transfer ratio is 200 Membership Rewards to 100 Elevate Points, but for the next month, the ratio will be 200 Membership Rewards to 150 Elevate Points.

How Membership Rewards Work
As a quick refresher, there are two ways to use Membership Rewards:

The dumb way: use them like cash to purchase flights, car rentals, hotels, or cruises at a paltry rate of 1 cent per point
The smart way: transfer them to one of the 16 airline partners

Transfer 80,000 American Express Membership Rewards to 40,000 Virgin America Elevate points by December 31, 2015 and receive top tier Virgin America Gold Status through February 2017.

In addition, if you complete the transfer by October 8, 2015, you will get 25% more Elevate points, so 80,000 Membership Rewards would equal Gold Status plus 50,000 Virgin America points.

Good Deal?
I value Membership Rewards at 2 cents each. I value Virgin America points at 2 cents each.

Virgin America no longer collects fuel surcharges on redemptions that fly Virgin Australia.

That means you can fly Virgin Australia's flat bed Business Class from Los Angeles to Sydney or Brisbane for only 80,000 Virgin America points + $130 in taxes roundtrip.