Best ever Virgin credit card bonus back – 32,000 miles on Black and 10,000 on White

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• Howard says:

  5 Sep5 September 14:53

  BlueJosh

  Its an interesting question and possible Raffles might do an article on your question because I believe your dilemma (and mine) is something many of us question.

  I have around 900k in Avios but between my wife and I only 42k in Virgin points. The reason most favour Avios is due to BA 241 and Euro travel at £35/£50 return.

  However, this offer has tempted me to go for 2 cards (wife and I) to bag the 32,000 points. I am going to move my Tesco Clubpoints to Virgin for next two quarters. I also have 60k in SPG points as back up.

  • Bluejosh says:

    6 Sep6 September 08:41

    Thanks for all your responses guys…..some thinking to do!

• Leo says:

  5 Sep5 September 15:03

  I ‘ve had the white card since last year. I passed the mark for the PE upgrade months ago – I am aware that you don’t get this credited until the anniversary of you taking out the card and I’m not quite there yet. I think I am right in saying that I need to have at least one of the Virgin Amex cards in order to keep the upgrade? Am I right or does it continue to sit in your FC account even after cancellation of the card? Ideally I’d like to give up the white card for the black card – what’s the best way to go about this? Give up the white card first and release credit amount (potentially losing the upgrade) or applying for the Black card whilst having the white one…..? I guess losing the PE upgrade isn’t such a big deal because to be frank I’ve no plan to use it in the next 12 months and I’d get another one after spending 5K on the black.

  • Jonathan says:

    5 Sep5 September 15:34

    PE upgrade vouchers sit in your flying club account. Once they’ve posted they won’t get taken back. I’ve just done a similar thing and cancelled by black card so I have none left. Now opening another black cc account in my wife’s name to get the bonus.

  • James67 says:

    5 Sep5 September 15:57

    Does this mean we have to keep the black card more than a year and pay a second £140 to receive a voucher earned in first year?

    • Liz says:

      5 Sep5 September 16:21

      I’m sure this came up before and someone said that if you don’t spend anything on the card in the 2nd year then you would get a full refund of the fee – but don’t quote me on that. I will have the same problem in the future. I am almost at the point of reaching the spend for the first upgrade voucher at £5000 which won’t appear in my account until May next year. Hopefully someone who has done this before can clarify it for us.

      • James67 says:

        5 Sep5 September 16:55

        Yes, I recall exactly this issue being discussed on HFP but was of no relevance to me at the time so cannot recall the detail. Too many potential posts to sort through to find it. I think I might find voucher quite useful, especially on the shorter flight to DXB where PE would be fine for me. I would probably c9mbine with Etihad J redemption from AUH to Asia.

        • Liz says:

          5 Sep5 September 17:12

          I wrote all that info down about the Virgin card but can’t remember which post it related to either. My husband is taking early retirement from next Xmas so we plan to take more USA trips from 2017 onwards including a Route 66 drive – so spending now and getting miles and vouchers in the bag towards that!

    • Jonathan says:

      5 Sep5 September 17:20

      I spent enough to earn 2 PE upgrades. I made sure I stopped spending on the card the month before they posted and paid the full balance off. The vouchers posted to my FC on the exact anniversary date and I cancelled the very next day. This was my second year of the black card – if the recall the £140 fee posts to your cc statement towards the end of the 1st month of the new year – ie month 13, 25, 37 etc.

      • Liz says:

        5 Sep5 September 17:23

        Did you have to pay the £140 fee in the 2nd year and claim a refund or did you just cancel and not pay the £140? How does it work?

        • James67 says:

          5 Sep5 September 17:41

          As I understand him, Jonathan cancelled tge day after voucher hit his account. This was 1st day of seco d year and tge cancellation took place before the fee hit his account.

      • Leo says:

        5 Sep5 September 17:23

        So to be clear you were not actually charged that £140?

        • Jonathan says:

          5 Sep5 September 17:36

          Correct, I never paid the second years fee and cancelled prior to it appearing on my statement. I’ve had a few MBNA issued cards in the past and spoken to customer services a few times, each time they never saw in my favour so there either isn’t any generosity/goodwill or its discretionary.

        • Leo says:

          5 Sep5 September 17:42

          Thanks for all the help – v useful.

        • Liz says:

          5 Sep5 September 17:50

          Thanks Jonathan! Will take note and diary my date for cancellation for May next year!

        • Gulz says:

          6 Sep6 September 00:10

          I was thinking of doing the same earlier this year… But my 2 PE upgrade vouchers were posted on my FC account about 20 days after the anniversary. So I got charged the fee for the second year… Then decided to continue for another year.

          Have already hit the £10k limit for this year. Need to talk to CS to find out that if I cancel my card now, will I lose out on the 2 PE upgrade vouchers.

• Gin and Tonic Please says:

  5 Sep5 September 15:21

  Does anyone know if this stacks with the refer-a-friend offer?

  http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/corporate/micropage.view.do?id=2450

  • Rob says:

    5 Sep5 September 17:59

    No. Absolutely not. Do not try it!

    What happens is that you get the normal bonus plus 3k which is a lot less tags this bonus.

    • Gin and Tonic Please says:

      5 Sep5 September 22:19

      Phew, glad I asked! Thanks for confirming, Rob.

• Sebastian says:

  5 Sep5 September 22:47

  I am happy this has returned, as I missed out on it last time and I have a £4000 FX spend coming up that will be going through the Supercard. Just out of interest, I know that you can apply for both the White and black at the same time but does anyone have experience of actually doing this? I just ask as due to be having a £4k spend coming up, I could hit the target for both in one hit, but I am slightly worried MBNA will not honour it if I did do it? Also, does anyone know if we’ll ever see the 60k IHG offer again?

  • Marco says:

    5 Sep5 September 23:55

    Yes, you can hold both white and black cards simultaneously

  • Gulz says:

    6 Sep6 September 00:02

    I applied for both cards within 15 days of each other. Hit the target and got the bonus on both!

• Bob says:

  6 Sep6 September 08:57

  I have neglected Virgin flying club for years in favour of BA but looking at collecting these too, does anyone know if redemptions and upgrade vouchers work for 2 adults and an infant under 2. BA is fine for this can’t see anything obvious on the Virgin site?

  • Pol says:

    6 Sep6 September 09:16

    I think an infant pays 10% of the price in miles.

  • Charlie says:

    6 Sep6 September 15:29

    You can simply add an infant via their call centre, i.e. redeem miles online, then call to redeem your PE upgrades, and also to add an infant. The infant will join same class as you, at 10% of costs.

• RoryGuella says:

  6 Sep6 September 18:23

  Great bonus. I’ve never had any Virgin cards but have got a United card also issued by MBNA. Historically this would mean that I wouldn’t get the Virgin bonus. Is this the case here or will I be able to get the bonus?

  • Fenny says:

    6 Sep6 September 19:24

    I signed up for the Virgin Black in May. Within the last few weeks I’ve also signed up for the AA card and Utd card and got bonuses on both. Both will be paid off this month and cancelled. I’ve had assorted MBNA cards in the past and always got the sign up bonuses.

    • RoryGuella says:

      6 Sep6 September 19:32

      Great stuff. Thanks

  • Trevor says:

    7 Sep7 September 14:20

    I too have signed up for many MBNA cards for self and spouse and never failed to get signu bonuses.

• Trevor says:

  7 Sep7 September 15:04

  Just to give an alternative (and rather technical) view on the Black card, the offer still fails to excite me. To me, this game represents good value for money and good time invested only if achieving the best return you can – max miles for min cost/effort. Otherwise you may as well go flip burgers in McDonalds to pay for your upgrade/flight.

  Considering the White gives 10k free, that means you’re only getting 27k more for the Black card (32k bonus, less free 10k on white card, add 6k for £3k threshhold spend at 2miles/£1 on Black, less 1k you’d have earned spending £1 at 1mile/£1 for White card). Now, that’s 27k miles for a sunk cost of £140 (can’t get pro rata refund like amex issued cards, and other bonuses don’t count for much and do require a much greater spend). That’s a 0.52p/mile purchase cost. Also, considering the extra £2k spend required to earn extra 27k miles, and if you consider a 1p/mile redemption value, if you deduct the £140 cost from the redemption value, you’re getting: (27k=£270 value less £140 cost) / £2000 spend required = 6.5% return. The free card gives (11k=£110 value)/£1000 credit card spend = 11% return, closer to double!

  Now, if you have plenty of Tesco points as I do, and can wait for one of the frequent 30% transfer bonuses, you can get 325 miles per Clubcard voucher £1. So to get 38k miles, it would cost £117 in vouchers – no hard cash down, but with a real hard cash value earned for free. This represents a purchase cost of only 0.3p/mile. Can’t really calculate an ROI due to mixed Clubcard point earning opportunities.

  In summary, the free card gives a better return per £1 spent on your credit card, and Tesco gives a better purchase cost per mile. Of course each to his own and all circumstances differ, but considering the restricted routes offers by VA on top of the value factors above, I struggle to convince myself that the Black is a worthwhile investment compared to the White or other credit cards. Of course those short of miles or with a specific redemption in mind for which they have no other redemption opportunities, this may work for them.

  • Rob says:

    7 Sep7 September 15:09

    I agree with that.

    What I would add, though, is that since the £140 IS a sunk cost, you are likely to keep on using the Amex for the next 11 months and so earn 2 miles per £1 – an excellent rate.

  • mark2 says:

    7 Sep7 September 15:20

    As always, how much you want those miles makes a big difference.
    If they are the last few that you need urgently to achieve your lifetime dream trip then they are, as Mastercard would say, priceless.
    Personally I got the 10,000 which I moved to IHG to get Spire status which I think that since I am going to be staying in a fairly ordinary Holiday Inn will not be worth much but cost nothing and I still have the IHG points to spend in the future.

    • Trevor says:

      8 Sep8 September 12:28

      We all have our own agendas, and glad you have one that worked for you. I too got the free card for 2 of us and together to Tesco points, went to NYC/Boston and Havana. It’s interesting what different people do (hence interesting reading blogs and comments such as this – it gives fresh ideas), but it was only recently that I started looked at the return per £1 spent on a card to realise where more effort could/should be placed, hence thought Id’ share the technical comparisons.

  • Gulz says:

    8 Sep8 September 18:07

    Think the calculations on Black may be slightly incorrect. Its (38k points – £140 fee) / £3000 spend. If you take 1 mile = 1p, then its (£380 – £140) / £3000 = 8% ROI. Moreover, your calculations do not consider the PE upgrade vouchers which is the bigger advantage of getting the Black card.

    Here’s my take on these numbers, assuming you spend enough to get 2 PE upgrade vouchers, and use them to upgrade 2 LHR-JFK economy tickets to PE (based on the virgin upgrade table, 1 way upgrade on this route costs 10k miles, so for 2 people return is 40k miles)

    White: Requires £20k for 2 vouchers, earning 30k miles (10k bonus + 20k spend). ROI = (30k miles earned + 40k miles from PE upgrade) / £20k spent = 3.5%

    Black: Requires £10k for 2 vouchers, earning 52k miles (32k bonus + 20k spend). ROI = (52k miles earned + 40k miles from PE upgrade – £140 fee) / £10k = 7.8%

    That’s more than double ROI on Black. I guess, like you said, to each their own!

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