Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Save money on No1 airport lounges and get double Virgin Flying Club miles

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If you don’t have airport lounge access via your flight ticket, your elite status, via a Priority Pass card from American Express Platinum or via a Lounge Club card from American Express Gold, your best fall-back option is usually No 1 Lounges.

No 1 Lounges is the largest network of premium independent lounges in the UK.  We have reviewed all of them in the past (click for the review):

All lounges include free hot food, free drinks (some premium food and drinks carries an extra charge), free newspapers and magazines and free wi-fi.

No 1 Lounges has a generous tie-up with Virgin Flying Club.  This allows you to buy access to their lounges at a discount and earn miles Virgin Flying Club at the same time.

For a limited period, Virgin has doubled the miles you earn from No 1.

The Virgin Atlantic offer

Virgin Flying Club offers a discount and a chunk of miles when you book.  You also receive fast-track security at Birmingham, Edinburgh and Gatwick.

There is a tiered earning structure, per booking:

  • 800 miles at Clubrooms
  • 700 miles at No 1 Lounges
  • 400 miles at My Lounge

This is DOUBLE the usual number of miles.  This deal is only available if you book before 30th September and visit by 31st December.

The special Virgin Flying Club pricing is:

  • £25 – No 1 Lounges
  • £12 – My Lounge
  • £35 – Clubrooms

You can only book the Virgin deal via this page of the No 1 website.

Because the miles are awarded per booking, you should make a separate reservation for each person in your group.

If you collect Virgin Flying Club miles, this is a pretty attractive deal.  Your net cost – assuming you value the miles at 1p – is just £8 for My Lounge and £18 for No 1 Lounges.  Given the cost of food and drink at Gatwick North it is difficult to see how you’d struggle to get £8 of value from your My Lounge booking.

You also get Fast Track Security access at Gatwick, Birmingham and Edinburgh.  Gatwick charges £5 for this if you book is separately, making this deal look even better.


Getting airport lounge access for free from a credit card

How to get FREE airport lounge access via UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, here are the three options to get FREE airport lounge access via a credit or charge card:

American Express Platinum card Amex

The Platinum Card from American Express

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

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with two free Priority Pass cards, one for you and one for a supplementary cardholder. Each card admits two so a family of four gets in free. You get access to all 1,300 lounges in the Priority Pass network – search it here

You also get access to Plaza Premium, Delta and Eurostar lounges.  Our American Express Platinum review is here. You can apply here.

Nectar American Express

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

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for the first year. It comes with a Priority Pass card loaded with two free visits to any Priority Pass lounge – see the list here

Additional lounge visits are charged at £20.  You get two more free visits for every year you keep the card.  

There is no annual fee for Amex Gold in Year 1 and you get a 20,000 points sign-up bonus.  Full details are in our American Express Preferred Rewards Gold review here.

HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard

A huge bonus, but only available to HSBC Premier clients Read our full review

HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard gets you get a free LoungeKey card, allowing you access to the LoungeKey network.  Guests are charged at £20 although it may be cheaper to pay £60 for a supplementary credit card for your partner.

The card has a fee of £195 and there are strict financial requirements to become a HSBC Premier customer.  Full details are in my HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard review.

PS. You can find all of HfP’s UK airport lounge reviews – and we’ve been to most of them – indexed here.

Comments (13)

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

  • Will says:

    I may have made this up but with the recent VS economy changes did VS not also introduce the ability to pay for CH access at LHR?

    I know you can get access if traveling through VIrgin Holidays but I could have sworn blind that you could pay for some sort of service- that included CH access- when booking directly with VS. I can’t find anything on their website so I am now thinking I made it up!

    • Lumma says:

      You can get clubhouse access with the new credit cards when spending £10000/£20000 a year but you need to be silver or above. Maybe that’s what you were thinking of?

    • Leo says:

      You used to be able to pay for the Guest List service which included CH access and which was £240 per person. I think they’ve dropped that though – might be wrong.

  • Lumma says:

    I booked the MyLounge with two separate bookings in may and instead of receiving 2×200 miles, I got 1×350. I never chased it up as it was only 50 miles less than what I expected but is it definitely true that you’re meant to get the miles per booking of you credit to the same account?

    Flying out of a terminal with one of these lounges I’d definitely use this deal if I didn’t have lounge access any other way though

    • TGLoyalty says:

      It’s per booking not per account.

      Therefore if there is more than one person just book iseparately per person and ensure everyone is booked in correctly at reception otherwise you won’t get the points/miles.

      • Lumma says:

        I did do two separate bookings, maybe they didn’t check in the second booking correctly. I got the No1 miles rather than the MyLounge ones for the one that did track so I only lost 50 points from what I should have anyway

  • Paul says:

    When you say 700 miles per booking, does that mean a booking for 4 people would only mean 700 miles?

  • VK says:

    OT.
    any news on when virgin credit card bonus sign up offers will start coming in (paid and free) considering BA is so much higher at present on their avios amex PP sign up offer?

  • Gael Wright says:

    I did this offer last time, only for the 200 miles, but they were never credited to my account. I emailed the lounge but they never replied. I am interested in doing this offer and it would be 700 miles so I would like to know they were going to arrive.
    Has anyone else not had the miles? And suggestions of who to contact if I don’t get the miles for the second time?

  • Trevor says:

    Hi folks
    I’ve made the first booking but it never asked for my Virgin a/c number? Are they matching emails or something?

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