Is Virgin Guest List worth the money?

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Virgin Atlantic has launched an interesting new service – Guest List.

Most frequent travellers acknowledge that, whatever they may think of Virgin Atlantic’s on-board product, the ground service at Heathrow (and to a lesser extent Gatwick) is unbeatable. It certainly leaves British Airways a long way behind, even with all the improvements from Terminal 5.

If you fly Virgin Upper Class on a fully-flexible cash ticket, you get all of these extra benefits:

A chauffeur driven car to and from the airport (75 miles radius)
At Heathrow, be dropped off at the Upper Class Wing, a drive-in / walk-through private area, with your baggage unloaded and checked in for you
At Heathrow, use a private security channel (fast-track security pass at Gatwick)
Access to the Virgin Clubhouse lounge – the Heathrow one is generally seen as one of the top 10 airline lounges in the world

Virgin Atlantic has now decided to offer these services to everyone travelling on Virgin, whatever class they are flying – at a price.

The price list (and full details) can be found here. It goes from £240 for one person, one way, up to £700 for four people which would also include a car trip home from Heathrow or Gatwick.

Now, whether this makes sense depends on a lot of factors – although the core market is corporates who want to trade down from Upper Class to save money but retain access to its perks.

I would say that this service works best if:

You live nearly 75 miles from the airport, and would otherwise have a hefty taxi bill or car parking bill
You are going to Heathrow, where the facilities are substantially better than those at Gatwick (no drive-through check-in, no private security and immigration)
You do not have Virgin status which would otherwise get you Clubhouse access
You will have enough free time at the airport to enjoy some of the amazing features of the Clubhouse
You are not travelling with children (kids over 2 count as a ‘person’ for the purpose of calculating your fee)

For me, it would be a poor deal. We will soon have 2 kids over 2 years old and we live relatively close to Heathrow (a £50 taxi ride). £700 return would effectively mean paying £600 (knocking off the cost of a taxi) for private security and immigration and lounge access – not a great deal.

However, if I lived 70 miles from Heathrow with, say, a £150 taxi bill and was travelling alone, the £240 fee would not look too bad. At the end of the day, though, it is always good to have the option, even if it will not be for everyone.

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Virgin Points from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

You can choose from two official Virgin Atlantic credit cards (apply here, one has a bonus of 15,000 points):

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

The UK’s most generous free Visa or Mastercard at 0.75 points / £1 Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 points bonus and the most generous non-Amex for day to day spending Read our full review

You can also earn Virgin Points from various American Express cards – and these have sign-up bonuses too.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for a year and comes with 20,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 20,000 Virgin Points: