Virgin America Sells $49,000 'Nerdbird' Flight on Cyber Monday

Source: Virgin America

What did you buy on Cyber Monday? A sweater, flat-screen TV? Well, one online consumer purchased a Virgin America charter flight for a whopping $49,000.

Virgin America teamed up with Gilt City — an online deal website similar to Groupon — to offer a "nerdbird for hire" charter flight to the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The buyer pocketed a private roundtrip flight for themselves and 135 friends from San Francisco to Las Vegas, and tickets to attend CES for everyone on the plane.

The pricey flight sold out within minutes on Monday with more than 50 bids received, said a Virgin America spokeswoman. The airline received 180 bids total.

"We get inquiries every year from local tech companies and entrepreneurs asking to charter our aircraft to head to CES, so we thought it would be fun to answer the call and work with Gilt City to create the ultimate geek gift," said Luanne Calvert, Virgin America's vice president of marketing, in a release.

In total, the nerdbird package includes:

• Roundtrip flight for 136 passengers on a Virgin America Airbus A320 christened with a handy Twitter hashtag #nerdbird
• Flight departs from San Francisco on January 7, 2013 and returns on January 9, 2013
• Free GoGo in-flight Wi-Fi
• Elevate Gold frequent flier status for purchaser and guest in 2013
• Elevate Silver frequent flier status for all other passengers in 2013
• 136 passes to 2013 CES from January 7 to January 9, including the January 7 preshow keynote and January 8 keynote addresses
• The plane will be decorated with a decal of the purchaser's choice for one month

Feel bad you missed out? You can still waitlist for the package by clicking here, as Virgin America is vetting and finalizing the official winning bidder.