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Virgin America Launch: Frequent Flier Program Pays You Back for Money, Not Miles

Virgin America's first flight is still a week away, but the airline of the geek (see: MP3 players, on-board Doom, and Linux) is already promising innovative ways to reward its passengers.

Just how will they do it? Members of the eleVAte Frequent Flyer Program -- yes, camel cased to the extreme -- receive five points for every one dollar spent, instead of for every mile they fly. That means a $418 round-trip ticket from San Francisco to New York will earn 2,090 points.

Virgin America's approach actually rewards passengers for spending extra dollars on those high-cost, last minute trips. Just 4,900 points (or $980) can equal a free ride. A mileage program that actually rewards you for spending more money -- now that is a cool thing. Finally we will be rewarded for paying $400 to go from SFO to LAX at the last minute.

There aren’t any blackout dates either, or so they claim -- time will tell. We remember JetBlue claiming the same thing, yet you can hardly ever find a seat when redeeming points on JetBlue.

While Virgin America promises no blackout dates and says eleVAte -- camel case again -- reward points can be redeemed for any unsold seat, we think you'll be lucky if you can find one, at least for a while.

The hottest ticket these days isn't for the Police, it's for a seat on one Virgin America's first cross-country flights -- at least for us travel dorks.

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· Virgin America's Coverage [Jaunted]