Get a 30%-40% bonus when you buy Virgin Atlantic miles or use ‘Miles Booster’ – is it a good deal?
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Virgin Atlantic has launched its semi-regular bonus for buying miles and for ‘Miles Booster’.
The first offer is an ‘up to 40%’ bonus when you buy Virgin Flying Club miles.
The link to buy, transfer or gift miles is here.
The closing date for the bonus is 30th November.
For the first time that I can remember, Virgin Atlantic is offering a staggered bonus:
- 15% bonus when you buy 1,000 – 9,000 miles
- 20% bonus when you buy 10,000 – 29,000 miles
- 30% bonus when you buy 30,000 – 69,000 miles
- 40% bonus when you buy 70,000 – 100,000 miles
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 30,000 miles, for example, comes out at £450. With the 30% bonus, you would actually receive 39,000 miles. This works out at 1.15p. 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 American Express Membership Rewards points, Tesco Clubcard 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 – American Express Gold charge card and transfer the 20,000 Amex points sign-up bonus.
And, of course, until 14th December you receive 10,000 Virgin Flying Club with the FREE Virgin Atlantic Reward credit card and 25,000 Virgin Flying Club miles with the £160 Virgin Atlantic Reward+ credit card. This is a better deal than buying the miles. Full details of the offer are in this article.
Miles Booster
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 based on recent flights. At this price, I would consider the Miles Booster deal if you know that you will be using them in the 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.)
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