Virgin Black launches highest ever sign-up bonus – 30,000 Flying Club miles

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On Monday, the current promotional deal for the Virgin Flying Club credit cards ended. This offered 10,000 miles for getting the free card and 25,000 miles for getting the £140 Black card.

To be honest, I was 95% certain that the cards would revert to their usual (poor) sign-up offer. After all, it is quite rare that Virgin ever runs a bonus – there wasn’t a single special deal in the whole of 2013.

I was therefore pretty surprised – and pleased – yesterday to see that the offers have been extended and improved. The Virgin Black credit card now offers a whopping 30,000 Flying Club miles as a sign-up bonus.

Virgin Atlantic Black Credit Card

The card comes with an annual fee of £140, with a sign-up bonus of 30,000 Virgin Flying Club miles. This is the highest bonus that has ever been offered – the usual bonus is a paltry 6,000 miles.

You will receive 18,500 miles immediately and a further 11,500 miles when you spend £3,000 in the first 90 days. Note that the target spend has increased from £2,000 to £3,000 for this promotion.

The earnings rate for the Black card is also EXCELLENT. You earn 2 miles per £1 on the American Express and a whopping (compared to the competition) 1 mile per £1 on the Visa.

My full review of Virgin Black is here. The application page is here.

The representative APR is 17.9% variable.

Virgin Atlantic White Credit Card

The sign-up bonus for the Virgin White card remains at the previous level of 10,000 Flying Club miles. This is still the highest I have ever seen, and triple the usual bonus of 3,000 miles.

You will receive 3,000 miles immediately and a further 7,000 miles when you spend just £1,000 in the first 90 days. Should you decide to keep the card, you will earn 1 mile per £1 spent on the Amex and 0.5 miles per £1 spent on the Visa.

My full review of Virgin White is here. The application page is here.

The representative APR is 52.1% variable, including the fee, based on a £1200 credit limit.

And vouchers too ….

There are also two long-term incentives available with the Virgin cards. The White card offers an upgrade voucher (from Economy to Premium Economy only) for a miles redemption when you spend £10,000, and a second at £20,000. The Black card offers the same vouchers at £5,000 and £10,000.

Both cards also offer what I consider a worthless incentive – a voucher at £15,000 (White) or £7,500 (Black) for a free companion seat (excluding heavy taxes) when you buy a full fare ticket in any class. Who buys full fare tickets, except corporates?

More information on these can be found in the reviews which I link to above.

What can you do with 30,000 Virgin Flying Club miles?

Quite a lot, as it turns out. Remember that, once you have hit the £3,000 spend target, you will have between 33,000 and 36,000 miles depending on which card you put the £3,000 through.

London to Dubai in Upper Class, one way = 40,000 miles

London to New York in Upper Class, one way = 40,000 miles

London to New York in Economy, return = 35,000 miles

London to Tokyo in Economy, return = 45,000 miles

London to Cape Town in Economy, one way = 25,000 miles

London to Boston in Premium Economy, return = 55,000 miles

London to Manchester / Edinburgh / Aberdeen on Little Red in Economy, return = 7,500 miles

Taxes and charges will be added on top. For economy flights, expect to pay £100 less than on BA, and for other classes expect to pay roughly the same.

Terms & conditions

The key facts you need to remember before you apply are:

The application deadline is 30th June, you have 90 days from application to achieve the £1,000 / £3,000 target

MBNA does NOT offer a pro-rata refund when you cancel your card. Your £140 fee for the Black card is a sunk cost. You are therefore (effectively) paying £140 for the additional 20,000 miles on the Black card, since you could get 10,000 miles for £nothing by getting the White card instead.

You cannot combine this offer with the ‘refer a friend’ bonus I normally offer, which would have got you an additional 3,000 miles. However, this is still a far better deal than the usual bonus, even without the additional 3,000.

According to a comment from a reader this week, MBNA will let you have BOTH the White and the Black cards, and you will receive the bonus on both. (I would not necessarily recommend applying for both at the same time, though.)

How can you earn more miles?

It is very easy to earn further Virgin Flying Club miles to top up your account. The options are numerous:

Transfers from Tesco Clubcard (at a higher rate than BA, £2.50 = 625 Flying Club miles)

Transfers from American Express Membership Rewards (1:1) – transfers from Amex to Virgin are instantaneous as well, once your accounts are linked, unlike transfers to BA

Transfers from Heathrow Rewards (1:1)

Transfers from most hotel programmes, including Starwood Preferred Guest. The 10,000 Starwood points from the current SPG Amex sign-up bonus would get you 10,000 additional Virgin miles. (Read my review here)

There are also some hotels which credit to Virgin even though they do not credit to Avios.

Car rentals – Virgin offers a generous 1,000 miles per Hertz rental for example

Receive 5,000 Virgin miles for taking out a Virgin Money ISA

The ‘1 mile per £1’ rate on the Black Visa also allows you to run up miles very quickly

Disclaimer: Head for Points is a journalistic website. Nothing here should be construed as financial advice, and it is your own responsibility to ensure that any product is right for your circumstances. Recommendations are based primarily on the ability to earn miles and points and do not consider interest rates, service levels or any impact on your credit history. By recommending credit cards on this site, I am – technically – acting as a credit broker. Robert Burgess, trading as Head for Points, is regulated and authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a credit broker.

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:

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with 30,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 30,000 Virgin Points:

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Virgin Points.

(Want to earn more Virgin Points? Click here to see our recent articles on Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club and click here for our home page with the latest news on earning and spending other airline and hotel points.)

Category

Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Idrive says:

2 Apr2 April 22:30

Yes we can!
- Idrive says:
  
  2 Apr2 April 22:35
  
  Sorry replied to the question straight from the email did not read previous replies.
  I checked NS&I a couple of times but never opened an account as i don t want to be bothered with taxation. What do people usually do?
Ben says:

2 Apr2 April 23:08

Sorry, new to all this – is the Virgin Visa considered a better option than Virgin Amex and if so, why? (Aside from the greater likelihood of use in the UK). Given the Amex offers 2 points to the pound, is this a no brainer or am I missing something?
- Alan says:
  
  2 Apr2 April 23:10
  
  You receive them both, they’re linked to the one account. The main benefit of the visa is to help you hit the spend target with retailers that don’t accept Amex 🙂
  - Idrive says:
    
    2 Apr2 April 23:13
    
    And you get 1 full point not 0.75 as per the other cards offer so if You are a big Visa spender this becomes a little bit more interesting
- Trevor says:
  
  2 Apr2 April 23:15
  
  I think you’re missing something – you get both the Amex and VISA on the same account, so use both, but preferably the Amex.
  
  Aand if you are still trying to meet other Amex issued sign-up targets, then use that Amex where you can, and this Visa where you can’t.
  
  If you are new to this though, you might not have considered the actual cost of the extra Black miles due to the fee, so consider my post below before jumping in.
Trevor says:

2 Apr2 April 23:09

I am surprised that no-one has offered any analysis of the Black vs White in terms of value per point. And since I am interested, I’ll share my findings:

With the previous offer, you could get 10k miles with the White for free, or 25k miles with the Black for £140. Assuming that you would be applying for 1 card, not both, and needing to make a choice, to me the choice was simple – the Black at £140 gave 15k more miles, but at a cost of £0.0093/mile. I was definitely not a buyer at that rate and since I value points over vouchers for more passengers/trips/flexibility, the long term benefits like vouchers I find of little value, while the same spend across more cards generates far more signup points.

Now that the Black bonus is up to 30k miles, you are buying the extra points at a rate of £0.007/mile. That’s better value, yet still not great – depending on your redemption, you might benefit or only break even. There would only be a limited group of people for whom buying the miles they require at that price is worthwhile – if you are interested in the Black card, have you seriously considered the cost of those miles? Furthermore, your higher required spend is at the same ratio to trigger the full bonus, so no benefit there either and that money could be spent meeting a signup on another free card offering the same number of points. Since the fee is not pro rata refundable to give far greater value for money once the bonus is triggered, although it appears to compare favourably with other signup bonuses, at this rate I am still not a buyer – I expect a very decent ROI and see no point in simply swapping cash for points.

And if you have £140 worth of clubcard vouchers, for the same cost you could have bought 45,500 miles before the transfer bonus expired! That’s more than double the miles for the same cost and no spend requirement. So consider carefully if you really want to buy miles at this rate.
- Paul says:
  
  3 Apr3 April 08:30
  
  You need to factor in the increased earning rate too, though, when comparing the black card vs white. Let’s say you spend £5k on the AMEX, the black card will net you a bonus 5000 points. That changes your calculations to the black now giving 25k more miles for your £140 so now £0.0056/mile. Of course, for someone planning to spend more, that cost would reduce further. Someone planning on spending a reasonable sum on Virgin flights even more so — the black card offers a nice bonus for doing so (4x spend!) whilst the white offers none.
  - Trevor says:
    
    3 Apr3 April 11:56
    
    I’d neglected the increased earning rate, and you do raise a good point. However, I’d only go so far as to count it on the initial signup bonus of £3,000 spend required as beyond that there is no ceiling so where do you stop? Plus, some other cards also offer 2/£1 so for general spend after meeting a signup bonus, it’s a bit irrelevant – I’m comparing signup bonuses and the cost per point. So, revised figures make the cost £0.0061/mile, though this is a best-case scenario, you are unlikely to hit all the spend on the Amex. So certainly a better deal than initially calculated and the redemption value should always be more than this purchase cost. I’d still go the Clubcard conversion bonus route though at a cost of half that at £0.003/mile, and save my spending for meeting signup bonuses with free/better figures.
    
    The interesting thing about this game though is that seldom is any 1 person “right” – each has their own agenda and what works out best for them which always leads to some varying and interesting input.
- CV says:
  
  3 Apr3 April 09:01
  
  For me, the 30,000 points sounded attractive in that is equivalent to 4 return flights with Little Red. Paying £35 taxes on each return ticket results in a total £140 of taxes, along with card fee of £140 and we are up at £280 in charges for my 4 return flights.
  
  So a redemption flight is actually costing 7500 points plus £70. In this scenario it doesn’t sound that great a deal after all, it depends on what flight I want to use as some Little Red flights are selling for just £38 one way (out of EDI).
  - Trevor says:
    
    3 Apr3 April 12:11
    
    Wow, at £38 o/w you don’t want to be wasting miles! As mentioned above though, personal scenarios are all different – if you already have a bunch of free Avios, despite using more miles for a redemption, buying miles to use less on Virgin doesn’t make it a good deal. Furthermore, if you already have a bunch of Clubcard points which are free to accumulate, while their face value may be £92.50 (who wastes them instore?), that is the equivalent cost of your 30,000 miles on a transfer bonus. It reduces your cost to £58 per ticket, but if tickets are available at £38 oneway, you are only getting £0.0024 redemption value per mile, so still less than the purchase cost of £0.003/mile via Clubcard and WAY less than the purchase cost via the Virgin Black at £0.0061/mile making it a pretty dire investment as you’d have lost 60% value!
squills says:

3 Apr3 April 10:24

It proved tricky in Internet Explorer so I had to download it in Chrome.
Trevor says:

3 Apr3 April 13:10

It proved tricky for in Chrome – had to try a few times before it installed correctly, and don’t have my first 250 points showing for the effort. Googled it and could only see 2 past promotions which are long expired.
Singing Dwarf says:

3 Apr3 April 14:30

@squills – From the email “We reserve the right to remove the download bonus of 500 miles if you subsequently uninstall the Mile Finder.”
- squills says:
  
  3 Apr3 April 19:58
  
  Heh heh! 😉
Jason says:

3 Apr3 April 16:45

21. I originally had a Virgin Black card 5 years ago which I cancelled 3 years later. I reapplied for the black card in the Virgin clubhouse where they had a 30000 points offer and in Dec 2013 and have received all the bonus points. When I received it the limit on my MBNA Platinum card was slashed- but that was ok as I cancelled it!

2. Applied for and approved for the white card on 31 March- thanks Raffles.

3. I am waiting for my platinum IHG to show after 6 weeks of having the Priority Club Visa- I had chased this up previously and was told to ring them back after 6 weeks if not showing- will do tomorrow!
- CV says:
  
  3 Apr3 April 16:57
  
  Try emailing IHG customer services, when i did this the status updated that same day.
Trevor says:

5 Apr5 April 00:32

While Amex is generally ok, and having recently experienced the horrendous service of Barclays with the IHG Black taking over a month to arrive, I am extremely impressed with MBNA/Virgin. Having applied for the White on Monday night, I got instant approval and already have my PINs on Friday, so card arrival is imminent. My OH’s app wasn’t instantly approved, but did receive an email confirming approval within 24hrs (late at night?!), which is more than Amex bother with. Now this only goes to confirm the general slow and sloppy approach of other institutions…

On another note, whilest my existing MBNA DC and AA credit limits remained the same, the new credit limit brought my total up to 1/3 of my stated salary. Alternatively, my OH was already on an equivalent of 1/3 of salary in allowed credit across the DC & AA cards, and now the White has been issued with an amount equal to a drop in the DC. I guess that accounts for the 48hr approval time. I also guess MBNA possibly work to a max of 1/3 your salary in credit.