Virgin America: Use Your Frequent Flier Miles Points to Fly to Space

If you're like me, you've got a ton of airline frequent flier miles stored up. And if you're a frequent flier on Virgin America, a U.S. airline that flies to New York, Las Vegas, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Washington D.C., those frequent flier miles are worth a whole lot more than you might have thought previously!

Virgin America, a budget airline based out of San Francisco International Airport, is currently offering a promotion for you to convert your Virgin America frequent flier points into a trip to space aboard their sister company, Virgin Galactic. That's right, you can use your airline frequent flier miles to travel to the far reaches of the universe.

Interested? All you need is 10,000 points on Virgin America. Cash these in and you're given a chance to compete for a ride aboard Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo in two years.

Virgin Galactic is a new venture by the Virgin Group and hopes to offer the world the first commercial, private space travel and earth's first commercial spaceline. It sounds a bit like something you'd read in science fiction, but it's fast becoming a reality. Virgin Galactic first tested its space flights in 2004, and its full line of sub-orbital, private spaceships are under construction now (source).

Starting immediately, all of Virgin America's frequent flier members can start putting their frequent flier miles towards earning an entry into the contest to fly to space. The contest, dubbed Race for Space, is open to all of Virgin America's frequent flier members (source).

Virgin Galactic bills itself as "the world's first spaceline," saying that they are offering their customers a "groundbreaking opportunity to become one of the first ever non-professional astronauts" aboard Virgin Galactic's "privately built spaceships, modelled on the remarkable, history-making SpaceShipOne" (source).

This move by Virgin America is an interesting promotion, especially in the face of widespread profit loss and price raises in the United States' airline markets. Recent airlines have closed across the country, including 30% of the state of Hawaii's airline industry. But as prices skyrocket and airlines start charging for everything from peanuts to checked luggage, Virgin America and Virgin Galactic have their eyes set on an obviously bigger prize.

It's easy to see how space travel could quickly become mainstream. It wasn't that long ago that the idea of merely flying was mocked and scoffed at, and airplanes now zig-zag across the world's skies every minute.

Virgin Galactic's efforts to become the world's first spaceline is undoubtedly a bold move, but yet one more instance where humankind's imagination can take us to whole new levels.