BIG BONUS: Get up to 60% extra when you buy Virgin Points

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Virgin Flying Club has launched another big bonus if you buy Virgin Points – see here.

The maximum bonus is 60%. If you are a Gold member of Virgin Flying Club, you get 70%.

To put this in perspective, before 2020 Virgin Atlantic had never even run a 50% bonus. 15% to 30% was the best you could expect.

The link to buy points is here.

The closing date for the bonus is 21st December. The bonus is staggered:

15% bonus when you buy 5,000 – 24,000 points
20% bonus when you buy 25,000 – 69,000 points
40% bonus when you buy 70,000 – 119,000 points
60% bonus when you buy 120,000 – 200,000 points

At the top end, 200,000 Virgin Points, which comes to 320,000 points with the bonus, will cost you £3,000. This works out at 0.94p each. If you are Gold with a 70% bonus, you are paying 0.88p.

0.94p is certainly cheap for a direct miles purchase. Most Virgin Atlantic commercial partners will be paying the airline more than 0.94p for their miles.

What sort of deals can you get with 0.94p miles?

The issue with Virgin Points is that there are virtually no short haul opportunities to spend them. The best deals are long haul Business Class flights across the Virgin Atlantic network and of course the route network is limited.

You can see the Virgin Atlantic reward chart on this page of their website.

Unsurprisingly, the numbers are not dissimilar to the Avios chart and you will find that taxes and charges are also very similar.

You want to looking at premum cabin redemptions to get full value if you are buying points.

Get up to 70% extra when you buy Virgin Points

There are great deals with partners

There is real value to be had with Virgin Atlantic’s airline partners too:

The fact that you can now book Air France and KLM flights with Virgin Points is HUGE. Suddenly, parts of the world which were not available to you because of the limited Virgin Atlantic network are bookable. Our recent in-depth look at redeeming Virgin Points on Air France and KLM is here.

ANA remains, by far, the best value partner redemption. This article explains how to book ANA’s amazing business class seat to Tokyo for just 95,000 Virgin Points return, or for 120,000 points in First Class.

There is astonishing value in Delta redemptions from the US to Continental Europe, because the one way taxes are just £4 as we explain here

Don’t forget the 2-4-1 voucher with the Virgin Atlantic credit cards

If you do choose to buy points, remember that you will also receive 15,000 Virgin Points as a sign-up bonus with the £160 Virgin Atlantic Reward+ credit card.

Our full review of the Virgin Atlantic Reward+ credit card is here. The review also gives you an overview of how the 2-4-1 voucher issued by the Virgin credit cards works. Unles the BA Amex credit card, the annual voucher with the Virgin Atlantic credit cards can also be used to upgrade flights which makes it useful for the solo traveller.

Buying points for 0.94p and redeeming them with a Virgin Atlantic 2-4-1 or upgrade voucher should offer good value.

The link to buy Virgin Points is here. The offers runs to 21st December.

Category

Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

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

Nick says:

4 Dec4 December 06:31

Essentially this is now becoming more and more like massive new quantitative easing by governments! Until the major airlines/hotel groups get back to some form of ‘normality’, this will just continue, indeed increase! Anyone that believes that the future value of their points won’t significantly, and increasingly be reduced, is surely living on another planet!
Barraclough says:

4 Dec4 December 06:56

There are a couple of concerns I have about buying Virgin points and it would be good to hear views as to whether they are justified before I spend a four figure sum on buying a fairly large quantity. Or indeed whether divesting of existing points might be worth doing.

Firstly, how secure are Virgin points given Virgin Atlantic are looking for funding to get through the Winter? And that was before Omicron added to the gloom. IIRC Rob reassured us last year by saying he was keeping hold of his points, and the points scheme is, or was, separate from VA – but would it be sustainable in 2022 if VA fails? It’s a matter of opinion of course but what better place to seek informed views than Headforpoints?

Secondly, for those caught up in the Creation/Curve debacle Rob briefly mentioned the other day that Virgin would be next in going after those who gamed the system. I’ve never cash recycled but settled monthly Creation statements with my VACC before charges for doing so were introduced in September, enabling me to get the Companion voucher more quickly. If “going after” means Flying Club accounts possibly being closed and points or vouchers forfeited I’ll steer clear of buying Virgin points at this stage.
- sam says:
  
  4 Dec4 December 15:48
  
  I’ll be interested to know more in this area. I currently use a curve card because i can’t get a joint account with my partner since we don’t have our details registered at the same address. so I use her curve card to make it easier and help her reach your rewards points.
  
  All my transactions are from restaurants and online shopping.
Mouse says:

4 Dec4 December 07:11

Quite tempted but the risk is that 70% of Omicron is Omicron. I guess the risk is reflected in the pricing.
BAgonesBE says:

4 Dec4 December 08:08

I do not think Virgin Atlantic will survive much longer.
I asked all my Virgin Points to be transferred to Hilton. This take 30 days.
Hopefully they will arrive before it is too late.

I wonder what would happen with the VA CC annual fee if VA goes bankrupt. Would we get it back?
Track says:

4 Dec4 December 09:12

I give a smart advice: there is no point of having Virgin Red/Flying Club to go bankrupt.

Just without an airline, the points will lose value and “the new” after-bankrupt airline can accept them at 1/3rd the value.

Granted, the shareholders in Virgin (eg, Delta) might not be happy to accept a bankruptcy because their stakes will be wiped out and they’ll need to shell out billions for the stakes in after-bankruptcy airline operating the same planes and livery.
- CarpalTravel says:
  
  4 Dec4 December 10:59
  
  In for a peny, in for millions of pounds. I can’t see Richard letting it go to the wall now.
  
  Also I believe they have been doing rather well be focussing more on freight in the meantime.
  
  The actual smart advice is to treat it as a gamble, only risk what you are willing to lose. Basically, be prepared for the worst but hope for the best.
JohnT says:

4 Dec4 December 09:25

Trying to do the maths on a Red level 241 redemption – is it better value for a couple to do 1way PE and 1way Upper, and then use voucher to upgrade PE leg than do Upper return at 2 for 1.5?
- Mark says:
  
  4 Dec4 December 20:47
  
  In most cases it is. To simplify it, what you’re essentially asking is whether a PE return is fewer miles than half a UC return which you can see from the redemption chart is often true.
  
  The exceptions appear to be Tel Aviv, and peak season redemptions only to India, Pakistan, Atlanta, Miami, Orlando and South Africa.
Phil says:

4 Dec4 December 09:29

Slightly OT – I’ve not been able to sign into the Virgin Atlantic app since yesterday. Anyone else have this problem? My app is fully up to date in the app store. Android version.
- Rob says:
  
  4 Dec4 December 09:31
  
  FC website is down for maintenance …. At least BA gave us notice.
  - Ian says:
    
    4 Dec4 December 09:40
    
    It’s working fine for me Rob.
    - Rob says:
      
      4 Dec4 December 10:44
      
      It was down yesterday for a long period. Perhaps some outstanding bugs?
      - Phil says:
        
        4 Dec4 December 13:06
        
        Still down. Thanks for info.
      - a270 says:
        
        4 Dec4 December 18:10
        
        Yes, it’s been up and down. My Amex points transfer to Virgin is a mess now as it has left Amex apparently but Virgin can’t see any record. On Amex it says a failure message re participant. Amex are adamant its all good from their end. Let’s hope they turn up. I would suggest holding off any points transfers.
James says:

4 Dec4 December 09:49

Rob, can you help get an official word from virgin on their massive lack of available redemption seats? There’s basically nothing in 2022 in upper class bar New York. This makes my points near useless, the credit card useless as it’s my main card, plus the cc vouchers also pointless. Clearly they’re having major challenges but nearly cutting off all loyalty rewards is a massive kick in the teeth for loyal customers, why should we bother collecting points we can’t redeem? And this promo to buy points is an enormous gamble as a result.
- Colin MacKinnon says:
  
  4 Dec4 December 09:57
  
  Plus one for that, James. No availability was the key reason I took the Hilton points.
  
  But now Creation has gone, I may be back to Virgin just to earn Hilton. Am finding cash sales cheaper than points at the moment: sub 1k in business LHR-FRA-Dubai and back to Edinburgh for Expo and 3k for Dub-Fra-SFO-Tahiti and return to Edi, with a stopover in the States.
  
  Yes, had cheaper to Tahiti with AA on points via Tokyo, but looked for a realistic Covid route.
- Ian says:
  
  4 Dec4 December 10:04
  
  I wonder how S75 would apply to the purchase of FF miles, does anyone know?
  - meta says:
    
    4 Dec4 December 10:12
    
    You purchased miles, the miles were deposited in your account. Contract fulfilled.
    - Ian says:
      
      4 Dec4 December 10:44
      
      Yeah, and I guess buying them through a 3rd party (points.com) breaks the direct link between you and Virgin in any case.
      
      It was just a thought.
- Stuart says:
  
  4 Dec4 December 10:51
  
  I booked Seattle upper for travel in May 22 booked in October. So there is some availability
- Bob says:
  
  4 Dec4 December 16:00
  
  might be related to their site / app being down since yesterday as no premium seats available either, just economy. site is partially up now but still not fully working
- Mark says:
  
  4 Dec4 December 21:05
  
  It’s typically not that bad for travel to the US – we did manage to get an UC redemption out to Seattle and back from San Francisco next September to replace the equivalent bookings that were cancelled this year, though we had to book mid-week to mid-week. Our Caribbean flights on the other hand had to be rebooked for Miami when originally cancelled, though I did subsequently manage to nab two UC seats to Antigua by literally jumping on the only availability when I saw it. Due to Virgin’s relatively limited route network and no minimum redemption seat release policy, not to mention clear risks to VA’s business longevity I’m not willing to spend masses on buying Virgin Points. That said I’m not cashing out to Hilton or IHG either. We managed a trip last month on a portion of our Virgin points that got us better value than if we’d cashed out our entire holding to hotel points, and I really do hope that they do get through this.