Bits: Virgin card retention bonuses, win a holiday with Hotels.com, another NY start-up airline

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• Tariq says:

  1 Aug1 August 06:09

  Presumably both readers were approaching their renewal date for the Virgin card? 5000 miles is fine if you are bluffing and intend to keep the card anyway, in my opinion, but not sure that it’s worth paying the £140 fee…

  I have paid the fee within the last 3 months and based on the situation not expecting the product to last another 9 months so hoping for a pro rata refund when MBNA aren’t able to offer it anymore…

  • Genghis says:

    1 Aug1 August 06:41

    Mrs G and I were both offered the 5k. It wasn’t worth it for me to renew Black as it would have meant another £140 but my wife was offered it on the White.

    • Jason says:

      1 Aug1 August 10:22

      Genghis data point on cancelled reward room for ihg reappear in availability

      • Genghis says:

        1 Aug1 August 10:35

        Thanks Jason. For my Paris Le Grand stay I had booked two rooms in the end in order to try this out if need be but there was availability anyway when I went to use my IHG credit card voucher on Sunday.

      • Mr Dee says:

        1 Aug1 August 16:35

        yes it does reshow quite quickly

  • Clive says:

    1 Aug1 August 08:36

    Not being able to issue new cards doesn’t necessarily mean they will have to close existing accounts.

  • Rob says:

    1 Aug1 August 11:21

    I have both the Black and White Virgin cards but have only had them for 4 months or so; how long do you leave it until you phone up and ask to cancel? Haven’t used either for 3 months as hit the targets quickly. Realise no pro-rata refund on the Black.

• D.C. says:

  1 Aug1 August 06:46

  I phoned up to cancel both my wifes and my virgin white Amex card.I was offered 5000 points to retain, just spend £1,000 pounds in 90 days. My wife was offered some discount shopping vouchers!! One card retained. Will attempt to cancel my white card again in a couple of months. I also hold the Virgin Black card, but my wife does not.

• Neal says:

  1 Aug1 August 06:57

  They offered me the 5000 point retention bonus two weeks ago on a white card. Same offer, 5000pts for a £1000 spend in 90 days

• Johnt says:

  1 Aug1 August 07:34

  Also offered twice on White even though have Black too. Will remember to do same on Black but well prior to renewal date.

• JamesB says:

  1 Aug1 August 07:42

  Unless there is an urgen need for 5000 VFC miles, or multiple target spends is not a problem, this is hardly a good offer. £1000 spend can get a better sign up bonus elsewhere such as SPG card, half way towards the likes of PRG or one third the way to likes of BAPP.

  • Genghis says:

    1 Aug1 August 07:46

    It’s also £1k of non-Amex spend…

    • Wally1976 says:

      1 Aug1 August 08:15

      …which can be done via Curve withdrawals.

      (On a related note, Curve emailed me yesterday asking for proof that I am a business user.)

      • Alan says:

        1 Aug1 August 08:17

        Interesting – what’s your usage pattern been of ATM withdrawals vs spend?

        • Joseph Heenan says:

          1 Aug1 August 08:39

          Curve sent me a rather odd ‘what would you do if curve was withdrawn’ survey yesterday. Not sure if withdrawal might be on the cards or if it was an attempt at a clever marketing ploy to make people really think about main advantage they get from curve.

          Combined with asking Wally if he’s really a business user you do wonder if there’s something going on at curve.

        • Alan says:

          1 Aug1 August 08:49

          Had that too – been speaking to them and they’ve realised their wording was a bit confusing! My impression is they’re just genuinely trying to improve the product.

        • Wally1976 says:

          1 Aug1 August 09:35

          I’ve only ever used it for ATM withdrawals apart from 2 small purchases to use the rewards balance (one at the work canteen and one for Amazon credit).

        • Alan says:

          1 Aug1 August 11:18

          I suspect that might be the trigger in your case – I generally try to put a lot of normal spend through on it too and haven’t (so far) had any queries raised. I think if you keep ATM withdrawals as a low-ish percentage of overall use it shouldn’t cause many problems.

        • Genghis says:

          1 Aug1 August 09:39

          I thought they’re starting to clamp down on “ATM only” customers and say that ATM withdrawals have to be c.20% of overall spend, hence why I now spend on the card.

        • Alan says:

          1 Aug1 August 11:18

          My thoughts exactly

        • Nick M says:

          1 Aug1 August 10:10

          Hmmm… might be time to utilise the Curve Rewards I’ve built up….!

        • Genghis says:

          1 Aug1 August 10:12

          @Nick M, like @Wally1976, the Amazon top up is useful for using Curve Rewards as you can use the whole balance.

        • Liz says:

          1 Aug1 August 13:23

          I was emailed recently by 2 separate people at Curve. One was querying my cash withdrawal transactions ie. need to be kept to 20% of overall spend, which I didn’t realise I needed to do and the other was to provide proof of evidence of my business. I applied in the first wave of Curve applications and applied honestly by saying I was not employed nor self employed and the application was accepted. I only use it for monthly ATM withdrawals. As I have been unable to provide them with the necessary documentation they told me they were going to cancel my card. I replied saying I had applied in good faith at the launch of their business and stuck with them through the Amex issue etc and they have agreed to suspend my account for now and will open it again when the consumer card is launched later in the year so I don’t have to reapply – although they don’t yet know when that will be. So for those only using it for cash withdrawals you need to start using it elsewhere. Lesson learned the hard way for me.

        • Alan says:

          1 Aug1 August 18:37

          Sorry to hear that, Liz. I’ve definitely got some small biz spend that goes through on it too, but also chuck through a lot of Tesco, M&S, etc. too – linked to underlying IHG Black. All this discussion did make me go take £200 out the ATM and then pay it back in at Tesco though 😀

        • the_real_a says:

          1 Aug1 August 13:58

          From a Curve prospective “ATM only” customers are costing Curve money on every transaction. Presumably Curve does not want another press scandal about closing accounts because people use a featured benefit “too much” (search for N26 when this exact same thing happened) so is closing you “by the back door” knowing that this useage pattern probably does not belong to a genuine business holder.

        • Liz says:

          1 Aug1 August 14:43

          It’s my fault for not putting other transactions through on a regular basis – I did use it very occasionally for other purchases but obviously not enough. In theory they should have rejected my application at the start but didn’t so I was lucky to be able to use it for this long – will just have to wait for the new consumer card to launch.

    • JamesB says:

      1 Aug1 August 08:23

      Good point.

  • Mr Dee says:

    1 Aug1 August 16:38

    I would use the card, if I could find a reason to use rather than just using the underlying card direct.

• Mike says:

  1 Aug1 August 07:51

  I guess MBNA want to hold on to Virgin Atlantic customers as long as they can and when Virgin Money take over the airline cards, MBNA will offer a different card with a bonus to retain our custom.

• Stuart says:

  1 Aug1 August 07:55

  Air Baltic also fly the CS100 to Riga from Gatwick.

  • MrFlump says:

    1 Aug1 August 08:46

    Air Baltic operate the CS300

• Liz says:

  1 Aug1 August 07:57

  We just cancelled both cards and got offered nothing!

  • JamesB says:

    1 Aug1 August 20:34

    Sounds like a bad week at the office Liz but I’m sure something good will be along for you soon, it always seems to go in cycles. My worst mistake in recent years was procrastinating over the iberia economist offer when it could be cancelled for a refund, I think I finally got round to it on the day or day after they changed the T&C. Lost out on thousands of avios across multiple HA simply due to laziness,

    • Liz says:

      1 Aug1 August 22:42

      it’s swings and round abouts! Hoping to get offered the Virgin White card in the Clubhouse in 3 weeks time to get the increased bonus and I’ve been told by Curve I won’t need to go on the waiting list for the new card when they launch it. Just hope it launches this year and not have endless delays – I was using it to help me get IHG Spire which I will get by end of Sept but will need it for next year if I want to try and achieve it for 2019. I got 3000 extra Avios for a 2nd supp on our new BAPP so it’s not all bad!

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