30% bonus when you buy Virgin miles or use ‘Miles Booster’ – good deal?

Virgin Atlantic has launched its semi-regular bonus for buying miles and for ‘Miles Booster’.  What is hasn’t launched is the equally regular “30% off Economy miles redemptions” sale – perhaps we won’t see this deal returning in 2017?

The first offer is a 30% bonus when you buy Virgin Flying Club miles.

The link to buy, transfer or gift miles is here.  However there is NO bonus for gifting or transferring miles – only for buying them for yourself.

The closing date for the bonus is 31st October.

Virgin now allows you buy to a whopping 100,000 miles per year at a cost of £1,515.

Is this a good deal?

As usual with these cases, the answer is “not really, unless you want to do an immediate redemption”.

To buy 20,000 miles, for example, comes out at £315. With the 30% bonus, you would actually receive 26,000 miles. This works out at 1.21p. You would struggle to get good value if you bought all of the miles you needed for a redemption at that price but of course topping up an account is a different matter.

Before buying, think if you have any Amex Membership Rewards points, Tesco points, Heathrow Rewards points or hotel loyalty points which you could transfer instead. Remember that Amex points transfer instantly if your accounts are already linked.  A cheaper way of getting 20,000 Virgin miles would be to get the free – in Year 1 – Amex Gold charge card and transfer the 20,000 Amex points sign-up bonus.

The second offer, ‘Miles Booster’, IS a potentially very good deal.

Miles Booster only works if you have a Virgin Atlantic cash or reward flight booked or have taken one in the last six months. You are able to buy an additional 200% of the base miles you will earn from the flight for just 1p each.

Click here for details. If you have a New York economy flight booked, for example, you would earn 6,916 base miles from your trip.

Miles Booster allows you to buy up to 13,832 additional miles for just 1p each. Plus, with this promotion, you would get an extra 30% bonus as well.

If you maximised the Miles Booster option for a New York economy flight, you would be able to buy a total of 17,981 Virgin Flying Club miles for just £138.32. That is 0.77p each, which is well worth considering.

You can retrospectively buy miles via Miles Booster for any Virgin Atlantic flights taken in the last six months, cash or reward.  Yes, even previously flown or currently booked redemptions count.

Even if you don’t have any current bookings, you may be able to take advantage of this.  At this price, I would consider the Miles Booster deal if you know that you will be using them in short or medium term.

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.)