Alaska Airlines bought Virgin America earlier this year, and the deal finally closed today.

These two airlines win almost all the awards year after year. Check out this graphic from the merger site:

Starting next week, you’ll be able to earn Virgin miles on Alaska flights, and vice versa, or book flights from either airline on either site.

Any elite status you have from either airline will be beneficial on either airline starting next week as well.

That’s a lot of eithers…

How do I win free flights?

Go here, and enter. Here’s the info they’ll require:

They merged. Now what?

All we can do is hope these two airlines will maintain the unique, quality flight experiences they’ve both become famous for, while allowing us to enjoy some reciprocal benefits.

Together, these airlines will dominate America’s west coast, which is why the merger took a while to get government approval.

Worse case scenario, they “become one” without enough added value, and we lose the free-market benefits of two airlines competing for our business.

Thoughts?