Get a 50% bonus on Tesco Clubcard transfers to Virgin Flying Club miles

Here is the first decent promotion of 2013!

Tesco has launched a 50% bonus on transfers of Tesco Clubcard points to Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club.  This means that you will receive 375 miles per £1 of Clubcard vouchers you convert, rather than the standard 250.

Full details are here.  The deals runs to March 5th, so you will be able to convert your points from the next set of vouchers as well.

Virgin is also repeating its offer of 1,000 Virgin miles for opting-in for auto-conversion of your Clubcard points each quarter to Virgin.  Nothing stops you agreeing to this and then cancelling after one quarter!

Virgin miles will become a lot more interesting in 2013.  You will be able to collect them on Virgin’s new domestic services which start in March.  Virgin is also likely to join the Skyteam alliance in the next 18 months, given that Delta Airlines of the US – a core SkyTeam member – has just bought a 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic.

That said …. the SkyTeam deal is not guaranteed and I don’t recommend you make a conversion to Virgin unless you have a clear idea about how you want to redeem them.  Virgin charges similar fuel surcharges to BA, so long-haul economy redemptions are still a bad deal.

Remember too that both Virgin and Avios allow one-way redemptions, so if both carriers serve a route you could redeem for Virgin one-way and BA back.  Redeem for Virgin Upper Class from Heathrow and you’d get to visit their Clubhouse lounge, generally regarded as one of the best in the world.

There is also an interesting arbitrage to earn Hilton HHonors points from this promotion.  As I outlined in this old article, because you can transfer Virgin miles to Hilton points you can therefore go Tesco to Virgin to Hilton.  With the 50% bonus, you would effectively get 3-4 times face value for your Tesco vouchers in Hilton points, if spent wisely.

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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):

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.

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

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

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.)