Virgin Flying Club launches a new redemption seat sale on selected Economy routes

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Virgin Atlantic has launched a reward seat sale on selected routes.

Full details are on their website here. Ignore the ‘up to 50% off’ headline as only one route is half price – Manchester to Boston.

You can book until 19th June. There is also a parallel 30% ‘buy miles’ bonus which runs to the same date and which I will cover on Saturday.

These deals run from 1st July to 6th September. All dates during this period are priced at peak level under the Virgin Flying Club redemption chart.

Economy redemptions are booked as ‘Economy Classic’ tickets. You can see the difference between Economy Light, Economy Classic and Economy Delight in this HfP article.

Check the cash price before you book a mileage ticket because, even with 30% off the miles required, these may still not be good deals on cheaper days. It is worth noting that, whilst Virgin Atlantic has historically had lower taxes and charges in Economy than British Airways, this no longer seems the case.

These are the routes which are reduced by 30%:

London Gatwick to Antigua
London Gatwick to Barbados
London Gatwick to Havana
London Gatwick to Las Vegas
London Heathrow to Boston
Manchester to Las Vegas
Manchester to San Francisco

This is the one and only route reduced by 50%:

Manchester to Boston

Here are some example prices in Economy:

Boston (from Heathrow) – 28,000 miles + £370

Las Vegas (from Heathrow) – 35,000 miles + £365

San Francisco (from Manchester) – 35,000 + £344

The last date for booking is 19th June.

To maximise your miles when paying, your best bet is one of the two Virgin Atlantic Reward credit cards. These earn double miles (3 per £1 on the paid card or 1.5 per £1 on the free card) when you book at virginatlantic.com or via Virgin Holidays. Another option is American Express Preferred Rewards Gold which offers double points – 2 per £1 – when you book flight tickets directly with an airline.

How can you top up your Virgin Flying Club balance quickly?

If you are short of miles, remember that Virgin Flying Club miles transfer INSTANTLY at 1:1 from American Express Membership Rewards as long as your accounts are already linked. It may 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. 250 Clubcard points are worth 625 Virgin Flying Club miles.

Whilst they won’t arrive in time to book this deal on this occasion, remember that you can get between 5,000 and 15,000 Virgin Flying Club miles as a sign-up bonus on the new Virgin Atlantic credit cards. I review the two cards here and here.

You cannot do a ‘miles plus money’ redemption for these deals. It has to be a 100% miles booking.

Virgin is also offering a 30% bonus on purchased miles. I will take a look at this on Saturday.

Full details of the reward flight sale are 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: