News: new BA CityFlyer routes, Amex transfers to Radisson are back, our Virgin Points winner

News in brief:

BA CityFlyer resumes flights to Amsterdam, Zurich and Dublin

In a LinkedIn post BA CityFlyer has announced it is returning to Amsterdam, Zurich and Dublin from next week, presumably to tie in with a return to offices and therefore (some) business travel.

• Amsterdam resumes 5 September, initially operating 11 times per week
• Zurich resumes 5 September, initially operating 11 times per week
• Dublin resumes 6 September, initially operating 10 times per week

Flights to Berlin, Belfast, Düsseldorf, Edinburgh, Frankfurt and Glasgow are also all increasing. You can book on the BA website here.

Radisson Rewards transfers from American Express are back

The ability to transfer American Express Membership Rewards points to Radisson Rewards has been offline for a few weeks.

This seems to have been due to IT caused by the separation of Radisson Rewards and Radisson Rewards Americas into two separate programmes. For a short period transfers from Amex to Radisson were going across at 1:1 instead of the expected 1:3, and then they were pulled entirely.

Transfers are now back, at the 1:3 exchange rate.

As this article explains, I think Radisson Rewards is the most generous non-airline Membership Rewards redemption.

It also has NO minimum transfer (well, it does, but it is only 3 points). This makes it a good way of emptying your account to zero if you are closing your card and have a small balance left. The ofter options for clearing out small amounts of Membership Rewards points are Nectar (no minimum) and Hilton Honors (minimum transfer of 200 Membership Rewards points).

The ‘Amex to hotels’ transfer page is here.

Did you win our 255,000 Virgin Points competition?

Last month we ran a prize draw to win 255,000 Virgin Points – enough for several return flights in Upper Class and much, much more.

Thank you to everyone who entered. The winner was:

• Susanna W

Rhys has already been in touch with Susanna, so if you think it is you, it isn’t. Sorry!

You can sign up for your Virgin Red account here if you haven’t already done so, and link it to your Virgin Flying Club account. This will let you enter other competitions and take advantage of other deals which are exclusive to Virgin Red.

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.)