Virgin Flying Club launches new reward seat sale

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For the third time this year, Virgin Atlantic has launched a seat sale for reward seats.

Both economy and premium economy seats are included – but not Upper Class. You have until September 23rd to book.

The great thing about Virgin seat sales is that you can book for ANY date in the next 11 months. As long, of course, as redemption seats are available!

Virgin taxes on economy redemptions are already lower (by roughly £100) than British Airways. Even without a promotion, the miles required are also lower than Avios for some destinations. A New York seat at normal prices will cost you just 35,000 miles return, compared to 40,000 Avios with BA. With the sale the difference is even more stark.

Here is a sample of economy destinations together with the taxes and surcharges required for a return flight:

New York – 26,250 miles + £248

Barbados (Heathrow or Manchester) – 33,750 miles + £237

Delhi – 31,875 miles + £307

Dubai – 28,875 miles + £248

Examples of Premium Economy destinations are:

New York – 41,250 miles + £410

Jamaica – 52,500 miles + £466

Shanghai – 52,500 miles + £500

Dubai – 45,000 miles + £430

Premium Economy to Cape Town is not included in the sale – this is the only route restriction.

The Virgin Little Red services to Manchester, Edinburgh and Aberdeen are also reduced by 25% from the standard rate of 3,750 miles each way.

You must book before September 23rd.

If you are short of miles, remember that Virgin miles transfer INSTANTLY from American Express Membership Rewards as long as your accounts are already linked. It will take a couple of days if you have not previously linked your accounts.

Transfers from Tesco Clubcard are also very fast, usually overnight – the ‘Clubcard to Virgin’ page is here.

You can combine these discounts with a CombiFare. CombiFare is explained in this post, but basically if you can only find a redemption in one direction Virgin will sell you a cash ticket for the other half at a discounted rate.

Virgin is also offering a 25% bonus on purchased miles and a 25% bonus on Miles Booster. I will look at this in more detail tomorrow.

Full details of the Reward Seat Sale can be found here.

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.

David says:

10 Sep10 September 08:42

This might sound like a silly question, but how do I link the American express with the Virgin account?

Thanks
- Nick says:
  
  10 Sep10 September 09:41
  
  Call American Express. That’s the best option.
- Rob says:
  
  10 Sep10 September 09:58
  
  Use the MR website, pretend you are doing a transfer, then on the last page there is an option to link accounts rather than actually transferring.
  
  Or ring Amex. Or do a nominal 1000 transfer.
  - David says:
    
    10 Sep10 September 11:13
    
    Thanks! Really helpful info.
jsky says:

10 Sep10 September 09:18

*It’s 7500 miles round trip to Manchester, Edinburgh and Aberdeen not one way…
Michael says:

10 Sep10 September 09:20

Does anyone know if the taxes and fees on reward seats are fully refundable if you cancel (less the £30 charge)? Virgin weren’t very helpful when i phoned.
Andrew says:

10 Sep10 September 09:43

I believe the usual cancellation policy would apply (taxes refunded minus £30 and all miles spent re-credited) but what isn’t clear is that whilst it says date changes are possible, I’m insure if say you booked a flight for next summer then in a few months wanted to shift the flight by a week or something, would you need to pay the extra miles to make it up to the standard rate or could you simply pay the change fee and not incur any extra millage?
- Rob says:
  
  10 Sep10 September 09:56
  
  Good question. Would probably reprice but you never know, people were able to move the £1 tax Avios sale seats earlier this year without a reprice.
  - Michael says:
    
    10 Sep10 September 10:05
    
    I did this a few months ago and they do reprice at the current miles needed, which was more. Although I did read yesterday in the terms that if you switch dates/destination that are less miles due to a sale price, you wouldn’t get the difference refunded.
Scott says:

10 Sep10 September 09:47

Considering some OSL-LHR-LAX-LHR flights were from £178 the other day, it doesn’t seem to be that amazing a deal.
But if you’ve miles to waste, then not too bad.
Pszczolka says:

10 Sep10 September 10:34

a relative newbie looking for a bit of advice…I booked 2 one way tickets LHR-Boston for November 25th because we’re moving back to the US. I did it a month ago thinking they might sell out (it’s 2 days before Thanksgiving) but can see they’re still available now.

So would you guys cancel the tickets (I assume it’s £30/person even if it’s one way) and then rebook to save the 8750 miles? I think it make sense to value them at .75p since they transfer over to other partners at 1:1 ratio and therefore 8750*.0075=£65.63…so not really worth the hassle probably. Did I work that out correctly?
- Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
  
  10 Sep10 September 13:03
  
  Why not call and ask nicely if they can match the current price?
  - Stuart says:
    
    10 Sep10 September 15:51
    
    I made a o/w Prem Eco booking a while back and there is now no availability on the flght. I called to ask if I could cancel and rebook. I was told that there are now only fully flexible cash tickets available on the flight so if I cancel my ticket it is highly unlikely I would be able to book it again at the reduced mileage.
    I also asked nicely if I could have the miles refunded – the anwer was no.
- Charlie says:
  
  11 Sep11 September 11:26
  
  I did something similar 2 years ago.
  
  I had booked 2 standard Economy redemptions, and then upgraded them to Premium Economy using the credit card vouchers.
  
  A few weeks later an Economy redemption was launched, so I called to ask if I can take advantage of this. The only way was to rebook using the lower redemption rate. They had to cancel the whole booking, refund the PE credit card vouchers, refund the miles from the economy redemption, and refund the cash for the taxes. They then ‘held’ the flights, and rebooked it all, obviously only needing a lower redemption rate.
  
  There is also a cancellation charge so you need to check if the potential miles saved is worth while. In my case it was worth while so I went ahead with it.