The thing that some people might find appealing about this is that the Virgin America / Alaska
Airlines merger means these 50,000 Elevate miles likely (educated guess, not fact) will become 100,000 Alaska miles when the merger completes.
Over the past decade and a half, the industry has witnessed a ton of consolidation (most notably in
mergers between Delta and Northwest, United and Continental, and American and U.S. Airways), which
means that
airlines are less likely to try to undercut one another on price.