Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Are you better off taking Flying Club miles or Nectar points from Virgin Trains?

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An increasing number of train companies are now offering Nectar points when you book with them.

It is ironic that the train companies feel the need to incentivise people to book directly with them.  They often have cheaper fares on their own websites than elsewhere.  More importantly, the train company websites rarely charge the rip-off credit card or booking fees that you will find with The Trainline and other third-party booking sites.

Virgin Trains

First Group was the first train company to offer Nectar points when you book at the rate of 2 points per £1 spent.  You can get this on Great Western, TransPennine Express and Hull Trains.

These are worth at least 1p per £1 and could be worth 2p if you hold off redeeming until a higher value offer comes along.  I wrote about one such deal, with Virgin Trains, this week.

Virgin Trains joined the Nectar party as well.

You receive 2 Nectar points (so 1% cashback effectively) when you book train tickets at the Virgin Trains West Coast website or East Coast website.

Full terms and conditions are on the Virgin Trains website here.  Importantly, your trip MUST include a Virgin Trains component in order to earn points.  Booking a trip which is entirely on another train operator will not earn you anything.

Is this better than earning Virgin Flying Club miles?

Virgin Trains has been a long-term partner of Virgin Flying Club.  As per the Virgin Atlantic website, you earn 2 Flying Club miles for every £1 spent at Virgin Trains.

You cannot double dip.  The Virgin Trains website makes you select either Nectar points or Flying Club miles.

I would value one Virgin Flying Club mile at more than the 0.5p you receive for one Nectar point.  You could arguably value a Flying Club mile at 1p (compared to my low end Avios valuation of 0.75p) as economy redemptions have lower taxes than economy Avios redemptions, whilst Upper Class redemptions require fewer miles (but the same taxes) as Club World Avios seats. 

This only makes sense if you already collect Virgin miles from other sources of course, as you will never earn enough just from train tickets for a flight.

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (April 2024)

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, the Reward+ card has a bonus of 15,000 Virgin Points):

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

A generous earning rate for a free card at 0.75 points per £1 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 & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with 40,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 40,000 Virgin Points.

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Small business owners should consider the two American Express Business cards. Points convert at 1:1 into Virgin Points.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year 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.)

Category

Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (21)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Aeronaut says:
    13 Oct13 October 04:49

    “It is ironic that the train companies feel the need to incentivise people to book directly with them. They often have cheaper fares on their own websites than elsewhere. […]”

    The Trainline have spent troughs of cash on advertising over the years and continue to do so, and hence reap the rewards when it comes to being the ‘go to’ site for train ticket bookings. Most HfPers are like the other savvy folk who know better, but the Trainline has huge name recognition out there.

  • Genghis says:
    13 Oct13 October 06:46

    So does Virgin trains (west coast)

  • Cheshire Pete says:
    13 Oct13 October 07:20

    It should also be noted, well at Manchester anyhow, the Virgin self service kiosks ask you to swipe your nectar card when buying tickets. No website required.

    • TGLoyalty says:
      13 Oct13 October 07:29

      Annoyingly don’t allow you to put your flying club number in though

    • Russell says:
      16 Oct16 October 11:45

      Penrith also has a new self-service ticket machine emblazoned with a massive Nectar logo. I would guess that these are being rolled across the Virgin Trains network as required.

      There was some comment fairly recently in Rail magazine about how TOCs should be looking at proper frequent traveller schemes rather than just a few Nectar points, but I have not seen any significant follow up to that.

  • Genghis says:
    13 Oct13 October 07:55

    Thanks Jonathan. I think I might wait and see what happens to the gift card offer after this weekend before jumping in.
    So Tesco – if you read this – please continue with the 75 Clubcard points / £25 spend on gift cards.

  • James says:
    13 Oct13 October 08:09

    East coast trains used to have an amazing reward scheme until it was replaced with nectar by virgin. Since then I’ve opted to take my train points as virgin flyer club miles and periodically transfer those into IHG as they count towards status via virgin.

  • Raffles says:
    13 Oct13 October 08:36

    Good spot on the 2,500 points. I will cover this again tomorrow.

    • Roger says:
      13 Oct13 October 11:12

      Should be fine but Note the following in T&Cs

      Only one points offer is available per customer. Not to be used in conjunction with any other offer.

    • Rob says:
      13 Oct13 October 13:00

      1. No idea
      3. True but it does NOT earn points

    • Genghis says:
      13 Oct13 October 18:15

      I don’t understand the 288k avios. Please explain.

      • Roger says:
        13 Oct13 October 18:26

        Not sure if my thinking if correct but I was applying max 30000 clubcard points per quarter or 120000 cc points which will convert into 288000 Avios.

        • Genghis says:
          13 Oct13 October 19:17

          I guess – but that’s a lot of spending on the card per quarter!

        • Roger says:
          13 Oct13 October 19:31

          If it works for paying to HMRC with moderate 0.3-0.4% fees it is doable for many folks here with handsome returns.

  • Sarah says:
    13 Oct13 October 15:05

    Hi Boi, I’m not sure as I’ve never tried it but I don’t see why not? The points are posting from two different sources and at two different times. Won’t hurt to try on one trip?

  • Roger says:
    13 Oct13 October 18:28

    OT- Any speculation on what is happening after latest bonus cc points of 75 per £25 GC purchase after 16th October.
    Is anyone stocking up for future spend via GCs? Or are we likely to some even better bonus point offer.

    • Johnnycl says:
      13 Oct13 October 18:51

      My view is that Tesco have shown they are commitment to their gift card business as they came back with this offer and have improved the range. On this basis my gut feel is that if this offer does end then something at some point will come back.

      I might stock up on a few card this weekend to help hit the Nectar Amex bonus but I’m not going mad with them.

    • Genghis says:
      13 Oct13 October 19:18

      I bought some last week but I’m not going crazy. I have some more churning coming up and don’t really want to put spend onto non-bonus earning cards. So fingers crossed Tesco will keep the promo.

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